Two Chester County Businesses Busted for Tax Offenses

Two Chester County businesses failed to pay massive amounts of sales and income taxes, according to the Department of Revenue.

Each business owner has been sentenced to probation and ordered to pay restitution.

“The Department of Revenue works to ensure the fair and uniform enforcement of Pennsylvania’s tax laws,” Secretary of Revenue Eileen McNulty said in a press release. “Failing to remit taxes is a crime that unfairly increases the tax burdens of honest, law-abiding Pennsylvanians.”

The first business owner, Robert G. Bahm Jr., formerly owned Becca’s Restaurant, a now defunct restaurant which operated in Eagleville, pled guilty on August 11, McNulty said.

He failed to pay $46,918.33 in sales tax collected from customers as well as $8,573.32 in income taxes withheld from employees between January 2011 and July 2013. Bahm was sentenced to five years of probation and must pay back $55,491.65 in restitution, plus legal fees, according to a press release.

In a separate incident, Pamela Schlett, the general manager of Chadds Ford's Stephens Aquatic Services, Inc., failed to remit $80,719.54 in sales tax collected from customers between February 2011 and November 2015. Schlett was sentenced to three years probation and must pay full restitution on the taxes owed, the release states.

Patch file photo.