A longtime swimming pool installer shut down last summer by the Oklahoma Tax Commission for back taxes pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to not forwarding employees' payroll withholding taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.
Theodore Michael “Mike” Zachritz, of Nichols Hills, started Lifestyle Pools LLC in Oklahoma City in 1976. He failed to forward income taxes, Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes from late 2006 through 2009, U.S. Attorney Sanford C. Coats said. Zachritz was charged Jan. 22 and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris M. Stephens.
“At today's plea hearing, Zachritz admitted that he deducted and withheld more than $290,000 in payroll taxes from his employees' wages during that period,” prosecutors said in a news release. “He also admitted that he knew he was required by law to turn over to the IRS the withheld federal payroll taxes each quarter, but he did not do so. Zachritz admitted that he still has not paid over to the IRS any of the payroll taxes that he withheld from 2006 to 2009.”
Last summer, the state Tax Commission padlocked Lifestyle Pools' property, then at 8901 NW 10, for the same reason.
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