Valliant, Oklahoma Couple Sentenced To Thirty Months In Federal Prison For Failing To Pay Payroll Taxes

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Valliant, Oklahoma residents, Joseph Barton Milligan, (a/k/a Jody Milligan), age 52, and Kerensa Chantay Milligan, age 47, were each sentenced to 30 months in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons after they entered guilty pleas to an Information charging them with twenty counts each of Failure to Account and Pay Over Employment Tax.

The Information to which the defendants pled guilty alleged that beginning in January 2015, they collected payroll taxes from the employees of their jointly operated trucking company, Joseph Milligan Trucking, Inc.  The defendants were jointly responsible for filing the employment tax returns and paying over the taxes due to the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), including federal income, Medicare, and Social Security taxes.  The defendants willfully chose not to pay the taxes collected from their employees to the IRS for the years 2015 through 2019.  As part of the plea agreement, the defendants admitted the total unpaid amount to the IRS was more than $1.8 million.

The criminal charges arose from an investigation by the IRS-Criminal Investigations after the defendants had previously been assessed a civil penalty by the IRS for failing to pay over more than $346,000 in payroll taxes in 2007 and 2008.

The Honorable Ronald A. White, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, in Muskogee, presided over the sentencing hearing.