This might be called the Case of the Candid Calendar. A Wisconsin bar owner was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine for filing false tax returns.
According to court records, Jared Jerome Hart, 36, of Eau Claire, Wis., owned a tavern called The Pickle Bar. His bar accepted payments only in cash, and at the end of each day, tavern employees would place daily sales in a safe for Hart to pick up. Hart would count the cash, and then record a number for the day in his own daily calendar. Hart would then deposit only some of the cash from into the business account.
Hart gave his accountants the payroll information, bank statements, the check register and vendor invoices. From these records, which Hart knew were incomplete, the accountants created the official books of the bu
siness. Hart never told his accountants about the cash he was “skimming” from the tavern, or the second set of books he was keeping at home. Hart’s daily calendars were discovered during the execution of a search warrant at his home in June 2012.
Between 2008 and 2011, there was more than a $1 million discrepancy between the gross receipts of The Pickle Bar reflected in the books the accountants maintained and the second set of books Hart maintained at his home.
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