{"id":131373,"date":"2026-02-12T16:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/131373\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:22:10","slug":"ag-james-secures-millions-in-evasion-crackdown-caribbean-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/131373\/","title":{"rendered":"AG James secures millions in evasion crackdown \u2013 Caribbean Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"New\t\t<\/a>\t<\/p>\n

New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, speaks during a news conference, to announce criminal justice reform in New York City, U.S., May 21, 2021. <\/p>\n

REUTERS\/Brendan McDermid, File<\/p>\n

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Tuesday, Feb. 10, recovered more than $4.7 million from the owners of two New York City truck rental companies, Able Rentals, Inc. (Able) and Abarn Equipment Corp. (Abarn), and their accountant, Howard Zapken, for their roles in a decade-long sales tax evasion scheme.<\/p>\n

James said an investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the owners of the truck rental businesses, Myron and Martin Schulman, pocketed sales taxes that they collected from customers on more than $15 million in revenue from 2014 through 2024 by vastly underreporting their taxable sales to the state.<\/p>\n

The New York Attorney General said Zapken, as founder of the accounting firm Zapken & Loeb (Z&L), helped the two businesses and their owners operate the scheme, which allowed them to avoid paying over $1.3 million in sales tax.<\/p>\n

As a result of OAG\u2019s investigation, James said the Schulmans will pay more than $3.9 million, and Zapken has paid more than $825,000.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses that cheat on their taxes are depriving our state of the funding that provides health care, education, and other critical services to New Yorkers,\u201d said Attorney General James. \u201cAbarn and Able violated both the law and the trust of their customers who expected the taxes they paid to benefit the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case sends a clear message to businesses and their accountants: my office will not tolerate tax evasion schemes, and we will hold you fully accountable,\u201d she added.\n<\/p>\n

James said the investigation revealed that the Schulmans \u201cmassively understated the amount of taxable sales they reported for years, allowing them to avoid paying most of the sales taxes they owed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did not use the actual sales records of their companies to calculate taxable sales,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead, they instructed Z&L to use only cash deposits made to certain bank accounts to calculate sales tax due.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese deposits represented a fraction of actual sales because they excluded all credit card transactions, which made up the vast majority of the businesses\u2019 New York transactions,\u201d she added. \u201cThese sales tax calculation methods allowed Able and Abarn to pocket most of the taxes they owed to the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, in 2018, the New York Attorney General said Able and Abarn reported taxable receipts of $250,099, while their point-of-sale system recorded that total payments received that year were actually $1,888,388.<\/p>\n

She said Myron Schulman then instructed Zapken to lower taxable receipts even further by disregarding portions of the cash deposits as supposed estimates of nontaxable transactions.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the resulting calculation of sales tax due was still too high, Myron Schulman told Z&L to lower the taxable amounts further,\u201d James said. \u201cZapken knew this conduct was fraudulent and warned his clients that the amounts used to calculate sales taxes were too low. Yet he participated anyway, filing false and fraudulent sales tax returns for the companies for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of their scheme, James said Able and Abarn failed to report taxable sales of $15,008,715.98 over a 10-year period.\n<\/p>\n

Under the settlements with OAG, she said the Schulmans will pay back $3,972,419.\n<\/p>\n

James said the whistleblower who brought this conduct to OAG\u2019s attention will receive $794,483.80 of the settlement funds.\n<\/p>\n

In addition, she said a licensed accountant approved by OAG must certify that Able and Abarn\u2019s sales tax returns reflect the actual transactions recorded by the businesses for the next five years.<\/p>\n

Under Zapken\u2019s settlement with OAG, James said he has repaid $826,660.61 and agreed not to sign, prepare, or file New York state tax returns for anyone other than his immediate family for the next five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, speaks during a news conference, to announce criminal justice reform in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-131373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}