A former Nevada business owner pleaded guilty today to willfully failing to pay over employment taxes on behalf of the cleaning company she owned and operated.
According to court documents and statements made in court: Deborah Meadows, 64, formerly of Las Vegas, owned and operated A to Z Employment Services LLC, which provided carpet, upholstery and roadside cleaning services in Nevada. Meadows controlled all financial matters related to the company. She also was responsible for withholding Social Security, Medicare and income taxes from her employees’ wages and paying those funds over to the IRS, as well as filing quarterly employment tax returns with the IRS.
From the first quarter of 2010 through the fourth quarter of 2020, however, Meadows withheld taxes from her employees’ wages but did not pay over those taxes to the IRS or file the required quarterly employment tax returns. From 2018 through 2021, Meadows also did not file individual tax returns, even though she was required to do so by law. In total, Meadows caused a tax loss to the U.S. government exceeding $1.2 million.
After the IRS began investigating Meadows, she took steps to obstruct the grand jury investigation. In response to a grand jury subpoena, Meadows provided investigators with altered bank records and inaccurate tax records. These altered bank records purportedly showed that another company Meadows owned had made sizeable tax payments to the IRS, when in fact the company had not made any such payments. She also provided inaccurate individual and employment tax returns that allegedly showed taxes paid to the IRS, when in fact Meadows knew at the time that she had never paid such taxes.
Meadows pleaded guilty to one count of willful failure to account for and pay over trust fund taxes. She faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Meadows is scheduled to be sentenced on May 21, 2026.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah for the District of Nevada made the announcement.
IRS Criminal Investigation is investigating the case.
Assistant Deputy Chief Eric Powers and Trial Attorney Regina Jeon of the Criminal Division’s Tax Section are prosecuting the case, with substantial assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada.