Former Alpine Auto owner sentenced and fined for failing to pay state sales tax
The former owner of the now-closed Alpine Auto Wholesale in Spokane had pled guilty to felony theft of sales tax and filing false state tax returns, the state Department of Revenue announced.
Marc Eugene Reed, 45, admitted his business collected $179,675.33 in sales tax on retail vehicle sales in 2009 and 2010 but failed to remit it to the state.
Reed went to court and was sentenced to 45 days and ordered him to pay $180,275.33 in restitution and court costs.
The charges were filed in November 2011 by the Financial Crimes Unit of the Washington State Attorney General’s Office..
Court documents noted that Reed and his late mother Linda Lee Reed admitted to state investigators that they knew that they should have remitted the collected sales tax to the Department of Revenue but were “going to get caught up later.”