There’s nothing the IRS hates and readily goes after more viciously than failure to withhold/remit payroll taxes. You can launder hundreds of millions via offshore banks or whatever and that could go on for years. But a small biz out of compliance with withholding regs they will go after with guns blazing. [perhaps a different analogy would be better] Because anything they want to know/show can be readily proven. The IRS will write strenuously worded letters on almost any other topic, but withholding issues, they come and chain your doors shut and slap liens on anything they can.
It’s more or less justified, in this case. If you are withhholding taxes you are supposed to pay on someone elses behalf and you don’t remit, you’re stealing twice. It often happens innocently, but it cannot CONTINUE innocently. The IRS has zero sense of humor on this topic, and once you get into 5 figures on withholding, they will not hesistate to crush you.
Businesses do not pay taxes, they collect taxes. That’s the evil brilliance of our tax scheme.
If individuals - not businesses - were required to make quarterly payroll tax payments to the IRS, the government would be instantly forced to shrink by 80%.
“There’s nothing the IRS hates and readily goes after more viciously than failure to withhold/remit payroll taxes”
That’s because it’s so easy to prove (to the penny), unlike a lot of other supposed tax shenanigans.