NASCAR team owner to plead guilty
Haas owner of the No. 66 ands No. 70 Nextel Cup Series cars was indicted in 2006 by the Internal Revenue Service who charged the 55-year-old Californian with trying to cheat the government out of nearly $35 million in taxes.
At the time of his arrest in June 2006, Haas issued a statement through his company Haas Automation insisting he was innocent of the charges and that the charges “revolved around" the company’s former CFO. He also pled ‘not guilty’ to the charges.
Haas was referring to John Phillips, the former chief financial officer of Haas Automation. Haas had accused Phillips of cheating the company out of nearly $28 million in the same transactions listed in the IRS indictment. Haas Automation won a default judgment against Phillips, who then went to the FBI and exposed the tax schemes.
Phillips was named as a co-conspirator in the case but was never charged with any crime.
According to the IRS indictment Haas and three of his associates created fake invoices in order to create bogus tax deductions.
The IRS said that Haas conspired with the others to create the fake invoices to his own company, a land title company, his NASCAR teams and even a bogus company set up just for the scheme. More at CupScene.com