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June 19, 2019

Metro Taxi owner sentenced for false tax returns

PHOTO | NEW HAVEN BIZ
By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo

The owner of a West Haven-based transportation business was sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation for filing false tax returns.

William Scalzi, 62, of Durham must serve the first six months in home confinement, according to the terms imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Victor A. Bolden during a proceeding in Bridgeport. Bolden also ordered Scalzi to pay a $2,500 fine.

Scalzi is the owner of Transportation General Inc., better known as Metro Taxi and now branded as M7. The 31-year-old company provides transportation services via taxicab and luxury and handicapped-accessible vehicles, and it operates in the greater New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford areas.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Scalzi understated his taxable income by running personal expenses through his company. Prosecutors claimed he used his company’s credit cards to pay for numerous personal expenses, then falsely claimed these were actually business expenses and deducted them on his company’s corporate tax returns.

He also did not include these personal expenses as income on his personal tax returns for the 2007 through 2010 tax years, prosecutors said.

Scalzi pleaded guilty in February to one count of subscribing a false tax return. He has paid $297,319 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, an amount which satisfied his criminal and civil tax liabilities for the 2007 through 2010 tax years.

Sentencing guidelines had called for Scalzi to get between six and 12 months of imprisonment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Morabito, in a pre-sentencing memorandum, had asked for a sentence which would “promote respect for the law.”

“The sentence should rebut the commonly expressed sentiment that failing to report all income is no big deal, and that it is acceptable to engage in such conduct without any real consequences,” Morabito said, in the government’s memorandum.

Scalzi’s defense attorney, Stanley Twardy of Day Pitney in Stamford, asked for leniency.

“The actions that brought Mr. Scalzi before this Court are out of character; he is a first-time offender who has lived an otherwise exemplary life,” Twardy wrote, in a defense pre-sentencing memorandum. “He has accepted responsibility for his actions and vowed never to repeat the mistakes that brought him here.”

Twardy called his client a “a pioneer in providing accessible transportation to elderly and disabled populations in Connecticut and beyond.”

In a written statement following his plea, Scalzi said that while working with his accounting firm, he “did not take the appropriate steps to ensure that certain business and personal expenses had been properly allocated” before he signed his tax documents.

According to Twardy, the $297,319 in restitution included about $40,000 in unpaid taxes, plus penalties and interest.

Contact Michelle Tuccitto Sullo at msullo@NewHavenBiz.com

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