Owner of roofing business faces tax-evasion charges

The Girard man is accused of not withholding FICA taxes.

staff report

CLEVELAND — A Girard man is charged in a one-count information in U.S. District Court with attempting to evade employment taxes owed on wages he paid as sole proprietor of a roofing and siding business he operated in Niles.

John D. Matuszwski was charged this week in the one-count information. He operated the company under the name Matuszwski Roofing and Siding.

The information alleges that for the years 2003 through 2006, Matuszwski paid his employees their gross wages by check and cash without withholding Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA, taxes or income taxes, as he knew he was required to do.

The information charges that Matuszwski attempted to evade the employment taxes he knew to be owing on those wages by failing to file quarterly employer’s tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service or to pay those employment taxes to the IRS and by further concealing the wages and employment taxes by paying a substantial amount of the wages in currency; and by issuing Forms 1099 to his employees and the IRS only for the portion of the wages paid by checks, which falsely reported those amounts as nonemployee compensation.

According to the information, Matuszwski failed to report and pay FICA taxes — including both the employees’ and employer’s shares — for those years in the combined total of approximately $165,851.

The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney John M. Siegel, after an investigation by the Criminal Investigation division of the IRS in Canton.