Jewelry store owner arrested for failure to remit sales taxes to the State
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Alexis Erkki Hytonen, 44, was arrested yesterday and charged with failure to remit sales taxes collected during the calendar years of 2019 and 2020.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Florida Department of Revenue, Hytonen, the owner and president of Altepa, Inc., doing business as Kirsikka Jewelry (5750 SW 75th Ct.), collected $18,637.59 in sales taxes in 2019 and 2020 and failed to remit any funds to the State of Florida. The affidavit also alleges that the business failed to file sales tax returns from January 2020 through August 2021, but formal charges were not filed for that allegation.
According to the affidavit, Hytonen was interviewed by the Department of Revenue in September 2021 and admitted that he had failed to remit the sales taxes the business had collected in 2019 and 2020 and had not filed sales tax returns for 2020 and 2021. He said the problems were due to his father’s illness and family responsibilities.
A tax specialist told the investigator that he had spoken to Hytonen five different times in 2019 to request voluntary compliance with the laws that require businesses to collect and remit sales taxes. Hytonen reportedly filed several delinquent returns in June 2019 but did not make any payment. In July 2019, the tax specialist reportedly left a voicemail asking about the payment. A few days later, Hytonen reportedly spoke with the tax specialist and said he would file additional delinquent returns, but he allegedly did not follow through and stopped answering the tax specialist’s calls. The probable cause affidavit was completed on October 20, 2021, but no charges were filed until March 2024.
Hytonen has no criminal history and was released on his own recognizance.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.Â
The state wants their money that they did absolutely nothing to deserve.
10% for the big guy.
If you do not pay your property tax….even here in The People’s Republic of Gainesville….The Gubbmint will show up, with guns, and put your ass on the street.
Did he think that the state would not want their share?
I always thought their was something fishy about that place. I suspect there is more going on there than tax evasion….
He charged the customers the required sales tax, it sounds like, but did not remit the collected taxes to the Florida Dept. of Revenue.
That’s not just tax evasion. That’s theft.
Florida doesn’t have an income tax, for which I am very thankful. The sales taxes collected in Florida are being used judiciously – paying down debt, for instance.
If the biz was hurt during Covid or online comp, did he try getting a PIP govt grant or loan to Covid harmed biz?
Yes, Covid hurt a lot of small businesses! That was a very difficult time.
Sales tax is added to whatever a business owner wants to charge. The customers paid it. He stole it. If the state doesn’t get the legislatively mandated amounts, it may consider levying income tax on the rest of us. BTW, sounds like his non-compliance began before COVID…
… not to mention the fact that this theft gives him a 7% advantage over law-abiding businesses.
So once upon a time, in a Galaxy far far away, I knew this dude who owed alot of child support in this great state of Florida.
This this guy had a very defiant attitude about his monthly obligation as well.
He thought if he got an everyday taxable payroll job, then the DoR could regulate his weekly child support obligation based on his hourly income.
So the guy came up with a brilliant idea.
If child support is considered Non Taxable Income under Florida Statutes, as it is deducted on an employees pay statement before federal income taxes are deducted, not to mention the DoR will intercept IRS returns anyway for the CS arrearages that were accrued at the time, Then what if the guy could potentially solve the issue by hauling scrap metal, earning his living, sort of “under the table? How much the guy made on his materials didn’t really matter, as long as the obligation set by the court was met.
So the guy went to the Gainesville Sun, and ran a service directory add in the classifieds of the old newspaper. Well, his idea then was, If he just kept the same phone number with a cheap trac phone, then residents who read the newspaper had to have a rusty old trampoline, or a washer, or an old dryer laying around that they wanted gone, and this dude was the answer for that.
The cash income earned from the recycling facilities then, could no longer be regulated by the DoR? Hmmm?,,, so long as his volumes were kept “lowish” as to not to tip off the IRS, this could potentially work…..?
So, about a year into this, he even convinced a Child Support Enforcement attorney, and a Civil Family Court Judge in St. John’s county as long as the guy generates the revenue needed so the obligation was met. (As the dude was facing a short bid in the clank, for his child support arrearages on a few occasions)
He had to find a quick financial solution 😦
Hell, the dude could’ve dealt drugs, so as long as that money order got to it’s destination every month in Tallahassee was pretty much the courts sentiment….
So!,,,, later on in life, the guy learned the difference in taxable, and non taxable commodities.
Anyone over the age of 18 can gather up and go sell a 5$ bag of aluminum cans. That 5$ bag of aluminum cans is considered a “non-taxable” commodity as per it’s volume.
It’s only when those volumes of aluminum cans are collected and multiplied by a qualified “Receiving” facility, do the materials become “taxable commodities”, and rightly so, because more volume of a commodity draws more revenue, and more revenue draws the attention of the IRS and DoR, so they can get thier little slice of the pie.
To my knowledge that dude paid off all of his child support obligation, and he never done a day in jail for it, and he done it by hauling scrap metal.
Where there is a will there is way, and I think of that dude sometimes, and I think about the enginuess of it.
In a court of law an obligation was set, and the dude worked his butt off, but he satisfied his obligation as per the court order, he was happy, the courts were happy, because he kept his all his receipts, and only showed the receipts to the St John’s court, that would add up to a very small bit over his obligation. He had to show that he could not only scrap metal to pay off child support, but that he ate bread and beenie weenies for food.
Again,,, The guy is a genius.
Thanks for reading along.