Believe it. I have seen too many merchants go to jail for not sending in the tax receipts.
It is a common story. Retail merchant gets in to a pinch and has a choice of who to pay the taxman or his suppliers. He decides to go late on his sales tax payments because he needs to keep stock in his store.
After this goes on a few quarters the taxman comes and audits his books and finds he owes more than he can pay. If the merchant can not come up with the money he goes to jail. He has collected the taxes from his customers but not given it to the government. He goes to jail.
I am against with holding of income taxes for the same reason. Paying taxes should be every individual’s responsibility. Not an employers or a merchants.
This has benefits besides that of keeping people out of jail. One benefit is that it makes people very aware of the price they are paying for government because they have to write the check. The second is that the politicians know that the people know what government is costing because they get the calls from the angry people who write those checks.
So they spent the money they collected for taxes? Tsk tsk. They deserved what they got. I grew up in retail establishments, and we never once spent tax revenues on the business.