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IRS files tax lien vs ex-IPI subcontractor
Accusing it of failing to pay $56,749 in taxes, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service filed yesterday a notice of tax lien against a former subcontractor of Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC’s casino-resort project in Garapan.
According to IRS documents filed before the U.S. District Court for the NMI, the taxes, including interest and penalties assessed against Beilida Overseas CNMI Ltd. ending for tax period 2018, remain unpaid.
“There is a lien in favor of the United States on all property and rights to property belonging to this taxpayer for the amount of these taxes, and additional penalties, interest, and costs that may accrue,” said a revenue officer in the notice of federal tax lien.
IRS claimed that Beilida Overseas owes Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return in the amount of $5,677; $44,717; and $6,354 for tax period ending June 30, 2018; Sept. 30, 2018; and Dec. 31, 2018, respectively.
According to then-assistant U.S. attorney James Benedetto, the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the offices of Beilida on Saipan in 2017 and discovered spreadsheets in Chinese titled “Beilida Complete Personnel Accommodation Statistics Chart,” which listed over 150 workers as hei gong, a term commonly used to refer to “undocumented worker.”
The FBI’s searches stemmed from an incident when a Chinese national died after falling from a scaffold at IPI’s casino-resort construction site on March 22, 2017. The searches ended up with an indictment against five persons for harboring illegal alien workers.
The illegal Chinese workers were found to have entered the CNMI as tourists and were working at IPI’s casino-resort project. Indicted were a supervisor, president, and two staff of Beilida Overseas, and a project manager of another contractor of IPI.
Except the president of Beilida, who was not arrested, all defendants entered guilty pleas and were subsequently sentenced in federal court.
