Oakland grand jury indicts construction business owner for alleged payroll tax violations

A federal grand jury in Oakland has returned an indictment charging a construction business owner with failing to pay over employment taxes to the IRS.

According to the Feb. 3 indictment, Larry Kudsk, of Berkeley, operated two construction businesses, M. Gutierrez Inc. and Kudsk Construction Inc.

For both companies, Kudsk allegedly was responsible for filing quarterly employment tax returns and collecting and paying to the IRS payroll taxes withheld from employees’ wages. Kudsk allegedly did not timely file employment tax returns, and did not pay withholdings to the IRS, for the last three quarters of 2015 for M. Gutierrez Inc., and for all four quarters of 2016 for Kudsk Construction Inc. In total, Kudsk allegedly caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $250,000.

Kudsk is scheduled to make his initial court appearance on Feb. 11 before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. If convicted, Kudsk faces a maximum of five years in prison for each of the seven counts of failing to pay over employment taxes. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.