A Baltimore County business owner was sentenced to 18 months in prison for employment tax crimes, the United States Department of Justice announced.

Brett Hill, of Parkton and Berlin, Maryland, was found guilty of 16 counts of willful failure to collect and pay over payroll taxes, per the DOJ.

In addition to serving 18 months in prison, he will be subject to three years of supervised release and $658,485 in restitution to the United States.

What happened?

Hill was the CEO and president of two telecommunications companies, where he was responsible for withholding and paying federal income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes from his employees’ wages to the government.

Hill was also in charge of filing tax returns each quarter and paying the companies’ share of Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Beginning in the second quarter of 2016 through the fourth quarter of 2018, an IRS criminal investigation revealed that Hill withheld those taxes from employees at one or both of his companies and never paid them out to the government. 

According to the DOJ, Hill caused a total tax loss of over $2 million.