Deborah Meadows, a former Nevada cleaning service owner, has pleaded guilty to serious employment tax crimes after failing to pay taxes for over a decade. Meadows ran A to Z Employment Services LLC, a company providing carpet, upholstery, and roadside cleaning services in Nevada. As the owner, she controlled all financial matters, including withholding Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes from her employees’ wages. She was also responsible for sending these withheld taxes to the IRS and filing quarterly employment tax returns on time.
Court documents show that from the first quarter of 2010 through the fourth quarter of 2020, Meadows withheld taxes from her employees’ paychecks but did not pay them to the IRS. In addition, from 2018 through 2021, she failed to file her personal income tax returns, even though she was required to do so by law. These actions caused a total tax loss exceeding $1.2 million to the U.S. government.
Authorities said Meadows had full control of her company’s finances, which made her responsible for ensuring that both employee and business taxes were paid correctly. Instead, she deliberately kept the money and did not report it to the IRS, creating a significant legal problem for herself and her business.
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Obstruction and Falsified Records
After the IRS began investigating her company, Meadows took steps to hide her actions. She provided altered bank records and false tax documents to investigators. The falsified bank records falsely suggested that another company she owned had made large tax payments, when in fact, it had not. She also submitted inaccurate personal and employment tax returns claiming that taxes had been paid, even though she knew this was not true.
These actions were considered attempts to obstruct the grand jury investigation. By providing misleading documents, Meadows tried to create the appearance that she had followed tax laws, when she had intentionally violated them. Federal prosecutors emphasized that these were deliberate actions, not mistakes or oversights.
Legal Charges, Prosecution, and Sentencing
Meadows pleaded guilty to one count of willfully failing to account for and pay over trust fund taxes. Trust fund taxes are portions of employees’ wages that employers are legally required to hold in trust and send to the IRS. Failing to pay these taxes is considered a federal crime because the money is technically the government’s, not the employer’s.
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She faces a maximum prison term of five years. A federal district court judge will determine her sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other legal factors. Meadows is scheduled to be sentenced on May 21, 2026.
The case was announced by 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. The investigation was conducted by the IRS Criminal Investigation division, and the prosecution team included Assistant Deputy Chief Eric Powers and Trial Attorney Regina Jeon from the Criminal Division’s Tax Section, with substantial support from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada.
This case highlights how seriously the federal government treats tax evasion, especially when employers fail to pay taxes withheld from employees and attempt to mislead authorities. The combination of withheld taxes, unfiled returns, and falsified records resulted in a major tax loss and significant legal consequences for Meadows.