A former Juneau gift shop owner was ordered to spend almost two months in jail after pocketing nearly $200,000 in sales taxes and then falling behind on repaying the City and Borough of Juneau.
Larry Lee Lynd, 61, testified by phone from the Anchorage area during his Dec. 16 hearing in Juneau District Court.
“I’m just behind the eight ball right now,” Lynd said. “I’m trying to catch up. That’s all it is.”
This is not the first time that Lynd that has gotten into trouble for not paying sales taxes.
Lynd was operator of Woolly Mammoth Gifts and Sourdough Larry’s in 2011 when he was charged with 33 misdemeanors related to failing to file and remit city sales taxes going back to 2005.
In 2012, Lynd pleaded guilty to five misdemeanors as part of a deal to stay out of jail and resume paying taxes. The other 28 charges were dismissed.
Lynd was ordered to serve 10 years on probation and pay $191,799 in restitution. For each of the remaining five charges, he received a suspended jail term of 180 days and a suspended fine of $1,000.
Lynd was required to make monthly payments of $700 to the CBJ. But sales tax administrator Clinton Singletary testified during December’s court hearing that Lynd only made seven payments over the last 19 months.
“Then he fell off for essentially a whole year. Until September 2016, he didn’t send any other payments,” Singletary said.
Singletary testified that it seemed like the city would get payments when it warned of court action.
The total amount of restitution that Lynd has to pay has now increased to $204,000 even at the relatively low interest rate of 3.75 percent.
During the December hearing, Lynd testified for over 30 minutes about his flood-damaged home, which he claimed was worth at least $250,000 at one time. But the house remains gutted and unrepaired. He’s three years behind on the $50,000 mortgage, and he thinks there are several hundred-thousand dollars’ worth municipal liens from Anchorage and Juneau, and a private Juneau business.
Lynd also said he has about $80,000 in bills stemming from a heart attack in 2015, and he owes the Internal Revenue Service thousands in back taxes.
Throughout much of his testimony, Lynd said he didn’t know exactly how much was owed to whom or which agency. Lynd apparently did not prepare for the court hearing, and tried to blame his faulty memory and poor record keeping on an uncooperative former accountant.
“If I could pay, I definitely would. It’s very important to me. I do appreciate the patience and I will be paying,” Lynd said. “I have a couple things that are going on that have potential where I’m going to have better cash flow. I don’t like this holding over me. I’m going to pay. I just need a little time. And, I pay when I can.”
Lynd said he made a little money, about $15,000 a year, by making “things” for private clients, but he never specified what it was that he made.
Lynd also admitted that he never tried to find a job.
CBJ attorney August Petropulos said what Lynd did was essentially theft. He simply kept the sales taxes that he collected from tourists and other customers instead of passing it on to the city.
“If they thought about it after looking at their receipts, then they thought ‘OK, this is sales tax. I’ve got sales tax where I live. So, this is probably going to water, sewer, trash, whatever, streets, police, etc.’ All of the things that makes society run,” Petropulos said. “It wasn’t going there. It was going into the pockets of Mr. Lynd.”
Petropulos said Lynd has been dodging his sales tax obligation for years.
Juneau District Court Judge Thomas Nave revoked Lynd’s probation and ordered him to serve 10 days in jail on each of the five convictions.
Lynd had been ordered to report to jail by Friday, Jan. 6. But Nave signed off on a one-month extension. Lynd’s attorney is seeking arrangements for electronic monitoring.
