Roofing company owner and accountant plead guilty in $2.5 million IRS fraud

November 11, 2024

A Florida roofing company owner and payroll administrator have both pleaded guilty to fraud against the IRS totaling nearly $2.5 million.

The court documents and associated statements declare that William Skaggs Jr. owned and operated Nastar Roofing, a Fort Myers roofing company. The office administrator, Billie Adkison, led the company’s payroll and other financial tasks.

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg for the Middle District of Florida announced the pair’s guilty plea in their attempt to defraud the United States government.

Pair plead guilty in $2.5 million IRS fraud

It is alleged that between 2013 and 2023, Nastar employees, including Skaggs and Adksion, “withdrew over $21 million from the company’s bank accounts to pay employees predominantly in cash without withholding Social Security, Medicare, and federal income taxes from those wages. They did this to avoid paying employment taxes they knew were legally required,” said the Justice Department.

Cash wages were also not declared despite Nastar using a payroll provider to record the transactions. So, when the payroll provider provided tax returns, the IRS was unaware of the unrecorded cash wages that were distributed to multiple sources.

Skaggs and Adkinson were signatories on the tax returns, and they did not inform the IRS of the additional outgoings as cash wages. So, their signatures on the payroll company and their own payroll accounts were false submissions to the government regulator.

It is presumed that the IRS lost $2.5 million in incorrect and false submissions. Both individuals will be sentenced at a later date, and they face five years in prison for the fraudulent submissions.

IRS Criminal Investigation leads the investigation into the finer details of the fraud, along with Trial Attorney Kevin Schneider of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Leeman for the Middle District of Florida.