CHICAGO (AP) – A newspaper reports that more than one-fourth of Illinois gas station operators have pocketed millions of dollars of sales tax owed to the cash-strapped state by underreporting the amount of fuel they sell to the public.
The Chicago Tribune reports in its Sunday editions that indictments over the past year and a half accuse at least 14 of the state’s roughly 2,400 gas station operators of illegally withholding a portion of the
sales taxes their customers paid at the pump.
But that’s just a fraction of the 651 operators the Illinois Department of Revenue says has cheated the state.
Some $54 million in back sales taxes, interest and penalties have been recouped largely through settlements or after scofflaws came forward under the threat of greater penalties.
Copyright Associated Press
