SAN FRANCISCO – LAWFUEL – Press Release Service – U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan announced that Sam Ho Low was sentenced on June 27, 2006, to 5 months imprisonment and 5 months electronic monitoring in home confinement for tax evasion. Low was also sentenced to pay a $6,000 fine and $73,954 in restitution for his crime. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup. This sentence is the result of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation.
Mr. Low pleaded guilty to intentionally under-reporting his business income on his personal tax returns for the years 1997 and 1999. According to the plea agreement, the defendant owned and operated a corporation named Frank and Sam’s Construction and Remodeling Company, Inc. (Frank and Sam’s Construction) in San Francisco, which was an “S” corporation under the Internal Revenue laws. Frank and Sam’s Construction provided remodeling and construction services for residential and commercial clients in the Bay Area. Mr. Low admitted that he requested that clients pay for his services either by writing a check payable to Frank and Sam’s Construction, or to Sam Low, or to pay him in cash. He further admitted that he did not deposit the checks payable to himself or the currency he received into the business bank account. He also acknowledged that he gave his income tax return preparer only the business bank statements to calculate his gross receipts for years including 1997 and 1999.
Documents filed with the court reveal that Sam Low cashed the checks payable to himself and used some of the cash to pay business expenses such as salaries, wages, building materials and building supplies, and that he kept the cash balance. He admitted that he did not tell his tax return preparer about the checks he cashed or the currency he received, and none of it was reported on his income tax returns in violation of Title 26, United States Code Section 7201. . Mr. Low acknowledged that the net tax loss to the United States was $73,954, and was ordered to pay this full amount immediately in restitution.
Joseph A. Fazioli and Jay Weill were the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case.
Further Information:
Case #: CR 06-0034 WHA.
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl .
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Luke Macaulay at (415) 436-6757 or by email at Luke.Macaulay@usdoj.gov.
