Owner of Colorado Business Sentenced to Prison for Tax Crimes

A Colorado paving company owner was sentenced to prison yesterday for failure to pay income taxes, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

Douglas A. Wieland was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison by U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson in Denver, Colorado. In September 2018, Wieland pleaded guilty to two counts of failure to pay income taxes, in violation of 26 U.S.C. §  7203.

According to court documents, Wieland owned and operated Performance Paving, a company that performed asphalt and concrete work. Wieland admitted that, from April 1999 through December 2017, he did not make any payments toward his income taxes. He also admitted that he took steps to conceal his income and assets to prevent the IRS from seizing his assets. Wieland deposited over $1.8 million into a “warehouse bank” account and then used that account to pay for his personal expenses. The purpose of a “warehouse bank” is to maintain the financial privacy of all “account holders” by commingling the funds of numerous account holders in a single bank account, usually at a domestic bank in the United States. Wieland also cashed checks his customers gave him for his services, and admitted at a court proceeding held in Adams County, Colorado, that he “cashed a check somewhere outside the box so the IRS doesn’t steal it from my bank.”

In addition to the term of imprisonment imposed, Wieland was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $166,658.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman thanked special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Tax Division Trial Attorneys Lori A. Hendrickson and Sarah A. Kiewlicz, who prosecuted the case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found on the division’s website at www.justice.gov/tax.