Indictment alleges Ohio trucking company dodged over $1 million in unpaid taxes

The owner of an Ohio trucking company is facing charges of tax evasion after allegedly dodging over a million dollars in income tax over a five-year span.

On Tuesday, May 7, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Ohio announced that a federal grand jury had returned a seven-count indictment against Alice Martin, the owner of Louisville, Ohio-based Martin Logistics.

According to the indictment, Martin is accused of “attempting to evade the assessment of income taxes from 2013 through 2018” as well as “attempting to evade the payment of previous taxes, penalties and interest from 2011 through 2013.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office contends that Martin “set forth a plan to phase out Martin Logistics after it became burdened with tax debt” in an attempt to make herself and the company uncollectable to the Internal Revenue Service.

The indictment alleges that Martin directed one of her employees to open a new company, TSA Transportation, which would serve as Martin’s nominee trucking business – a term used to describe a situation where one party holds legal title to property for the benefit of another.

“Beginning January 2013, contracts for trucking services were primarily bid under TSA Transportation’s name, but the income TSA Transportation received was directly deposited into a bank account for another entity that Martin owned and controlled, A.F. Martin,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “In addition, Martin placed Martin Logistics’ assets, including trucks and trailers, into the name of yet another Martin-owned company, Martin Global.”

The indictment claims that between 2013 and 2018, Martin deposited roughly $18 million in gross receipts associated with TSA Transportation contracts into the A.F. Martin banking account. Over that time, she “regularly failed to file individual and corporate tax returns” associated with her trucking businesses and “failed to pay the taxes on her income.”

The indictment also alleges the trucking company owner made “several misrepresentations to the IRS” in relation to the finances of Martin Logistics, with “several more misrepresentations” made after the tax-evasion scheme was uncovered.

In total, prosecutors claim Martin received over $3.6 million in unreported taxable income between 2013 and 2018, dodging approximately $1.2 million in taxes due over that span.

If convicted, Martin could be facing up to $100,000 in fines and the possibility of up to five years in prison.

According to data from the United States Sentencing Commission, roughly 60% of all tax-fraud offenders in 2022 were sentenced to prison, with an average sentence of 13 months. LL