James Siganos, the owner of American Cleaning Crew, was handed a 21-month prison sentence on Friday after being found guilty of tax evasion for underreporting gross sales at his carpet-cleaning business by more than $400,000.
 
Siganos, 50, was initially charged on May 26 for evading corporate income taxes and pled guilty to the charges on June 11. On top of Siganos’ conviction for one count of tax evasion, he was also ordered to pay $300,619 in restitution.
 
Court filings from the case indicate that the Internal Revenue Service first became suspicious when Siganos reported only $246,166 in gross sales in 2009 for his Mound-based business.
 
An investigation by the IRS uncovered that American Cleaning Crew’s sales in 2009 were just under $600,000 — well over double what Siganos stated in the company’s 1120S U.S. Income Tax Return form.
 
“This defendant took affirmative steps to hide his business income from the government,” said Joseph Thompson, assistant U.S. attorney, in a statement. “But the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS noticed and stopped Mr. Siganos from continuing to engage in his willful criminal conduct.”
 
To avoid paying taxes on the company’s full revenue, Siganos had cashed more than 1,400 checks amounting to $410,905 at a check cashing facility in Minneapolis.
 
As a result, Siganos underreported his 2009 company income by $344,858. For the three years that followed, Siganos didn’t even file an income tax return, totaling to $438,991 in unreported income tax returns.
 
At the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery delivered Siganos’ prison sentence and fine.