State officials say he underreported sales, pocketing about $150,000 in tax. He is also charged with destroying business records.
By STEVE THOMPSON
Published February 19, 2004
HUDSON - Auto dealer Willis J. Pearce Sr. collected $185,924.95 in sales tax during 2000, 2001 and part of 2002, state tax officials say.
But the 64-year-old who was running Wholesale Express Inc. in Hudson only reported $34,817.98 of it to the tax collector.
"So for every $6 that he was collecting he was pocketing five," Dave Bruns, a spokesman for Florida's Department of Revenue, said Wednesday.
A special agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested Pearce on Wednesday morning on charges of stealing about $150,000 in sales tax, filing fraudulent tax returns, and illegally destroying business records in an attempt to cover up tax fraud.
"I don't think we've had a tax theft case of this size for three or four months," Bruns said. "So this is going to rank certainly in the top 10 for the year statewide."
Investigators say Pearce routinely collected tax from customers, neglected to report it, then used it for business and personal expenses.
"He was cutting personal checks to himself," Bruns said.
Bruns said that after investigators began reviewing his business dealings, Pearce destroyed all of his business records. Pearce also shut down his business at 9201 State Road 52, transferred his business activity to another auto dealer's business and continued to steal sales tax collected from customers, Bruns said.
Though the records had been destroyed, investigators were able to reconstruct information about the business' affairs by matching information from auto-title records and sales tax returns filed by Pearce, Bruns said.
"We have a very poor sense of humor about tax theft," Bruns said. "This is money that the public pays to support things like keeping desperate criminals behind bars, like educating little children, like providing health care to very sick people."
Asked why tax officials began investigating Pearce in the first place, Bruns was careful in his response.
"Just let me say that we have been working with other agencies that have been interested in Mr. Pearce's business dealings for quite some time," Bruns said.
Pearce's criminal record in Florida is clean with the exception of an assault and battery charge from 1975, records show.
Pearce, of 10150 Casey Drive in New Port Richey, was released from the county jail Wednesday afternoon on $30,000 bail. The Times could not reach him for comment.
Bruns asked anyone with information about tax theft to call the Florida Department of Revenue investigations office in Port Richey at (727) 841-4272.
- Steve Thompson covers crime in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is sthompson@sptimes.com
