Bloke sold cash register code to restaurants that deliberately hid sales from taxmen
A salesman sold cash register software that allowed business bosses to cheat on their taxes.
John Yin, 66, appeared before the US district court in Seattle to plead guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud Uncle Sam. He faces up to 25 years behind bars and must cough up $3,445,589 to the authorities.
Yin, of Everett, Washington, made his living selling point-of-sale systems from Profitek, a Canadian firm with affiliates in China. While the sales terminals themselves were one part of Yin's business, he also sold a piece of software for them called Zapper, which deletes a percentage of cash sales from the register so businesses can pocket the proceeds untaxed.
"This defendant sold businesses a high tech tool that had only one purpose – to give businesses a leg up by cheating the taxman," said US Attorney Annette Hayes on Friday.
"In addition, by not paying their fair share of taxes, they cheated state and federal programs and victimized workers whose employment and social security taxes went unpaid as well."
Conventional sales till software creates an automatic register of all transactions for tax purposes, but Zapper effectively allows two sets of books to be kept, the actual one and the revised books that hide some or all cash transactions.
Eight restaurants in the Seattle area were found to be using Yin's tax-evasion software and have underpaid their taxes by between $145,000 and $910,000 between 2010 and 2013. One restaurateur is accused of dodging $395,000 in sales tax and is facing two years in prison if found guilty.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/05/point_of_sales_software_tax_fraud/
