{"id":280003,"date":"2026-05-21T21:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280003\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T21:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:55:07","slug":"jacksonville-man-sentenced-to-prison-after-not-paying-3-7-million-in-business-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280003\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville man sentenced to prison after not paying $3.7 million in business taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice says that in addition to his prison sentence, he must pay approximately $3,751,485 in restitution.<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville businessman has been sentenced to 22 months in prison for tax evasion, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n

According to the DOJ, Phillip Mak, a self-employed sales representative from Neptune Beach, earned more than $10 million from 2008 to 2020.<\/p>\n

Because of his earnings, the DOJ states that Mak owned more than $3.7 million in federal taxes “but did not pay them when required to do so.” The IRS had attempted to make contact with Mak, sending him notices and filing a Notice of Federal Tax Lien<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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Court documents show that Mak attempted to shield his assets from the IRS by transferring $1 million in cash to his domestic partner’s bank accounts and also by transferring ownership of his personal residence to a trust created by them.<\/p>\n

Mak was indicted<\/a> for the crimes in 2025 and later pleaded guilty<\/a> in early 2026.<\/p>\n

In addition to 22 months in prison, the DOJ says that Mak was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release and is ordered to pay $3,751,485 in restitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cTax evasion isn\u2019t financial strategy\u2014it\u2019s a deliberate choice with predictable consequences,\u201d said Ron Loecker, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Florida Field Office. \u201cEvading your true tax obligation is not a harmless oversight\u2014it\u2019s a serious violation of federal law. IRS Special Agents will follow the money and present the facts in court.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Justice says that in addition to his prison sentence, he must pay approximately $3,751,485 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-280003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}