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Fairfield County resident Lizbel Sanchez, also known as Lizbel Diaz, age 47, of Brookfield, the co-owner of a C-Town location in Danbury, pleaded guilty to a federal tax offense.
US Attorney Leonard Boyle said that Sanchez, a minority owner of Danbury Food Corp., which operates a C-Town grocery store in the city, was responsible for the company’s accounting and financial records, as well as collecting and paying federal taxes from some employees.
Specifically, Boyle said that Sanchez was tasked with collecting and paying federal income taxes and Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes, which include Medicare and social security taxes, and for paying the company’s share of FICA and its Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), which were based on its employees’ taxable wages.
An investigation into Danbury Food Corp. found that Sanchez paid several employees in cash under the table and failed to collect or pay income taxes on the wages.
In total, Sanchez cost the government a tax loss of $408,121.85 in the 2016 tax year.
Sanchez pleaded guilty to one count of wilful failure to collect or pay over taxes. She faces up to five years in prison when she is sentenced in July, Boyle said. She remains released pending her sentence.
Boyle noted that Sanchez has paid $408,121.85 in restitution to the IRS, and that she also has acknowledged similar conduct for DFC in 2017 and 2018, and for other businesses in which Sanchez had an interest 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Those tax losses are expected to be addressed civilly by the IRS.
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