United States Fourth Circuit

District court's imposition of personal liability on defendant for payroll withholding taxes owed by a company, where he owned a one-third interest and served as its corporate officer and director and conducted various business transactions on its behalf, is affirmed where: 1) defendant's own admissions demonstrate, as a matter of law, that he was a responsible person under 26 U.S.C. section 6672 during the relevant tax periods; and 2) the record demonstrates that the company generated several million dollars in gross receipts after the relevant period and paid rent and food vendors with those funds instead of paying the IRS, and thus, by preferring its other creditors to the IRS, defendant willfully failed to remit the company's payroll taxes for the fourth quarter of 1998 and the first three quarters of 1999.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/13/2010
• Published 01/13/2010

Judges

• Before MOTZ, Circuit Judge, HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge, and Irene M. KEELEY, United States District Judge for the Northern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:Emma Claire Merritt, Tuggle, Duggins & Meschan, PA, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Christine Durney Mason, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF:J. Nathan Duggins, III, Tuggle, Duggins & Meschan, PA, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. John A. DiCicco, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth L. Greene, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Anna Mills S. Wagoner, United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.