SEATTLE — An Everett salesman who peddled software that allows businesses to underreport their sales to avoid paying taxes must pay back $3.4 million.
John Yin, 66, worked for Profitek, a British Columbia company that sells point of sales systems to businesses, including restaurants. The company, according to federal prosecutors, designed, marketed and sold revenue-suppression software as an add-on to its point of sale software.
The suppression software, sometimes called a “zapper” program, allows businesses to modify their point of sale database to underreport revenue.
Yin sold the software to dozens of customers over several years. Eight Seattle-area restaurants used the software and underpaid their state and federal taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to federal prosecutors.
“Revenue Suppression Software represents the modern iteration of old-fashioned skimming,” said Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, of IRS Criminal Investigation, in a press release.
Yin pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the government. He is scheduled to be sentenced in February.
The investigation is ongoing. The state Attorney General’s Office is pursuing a criminal case against a Bellevue restaurant accused of using the software to avoid paying nearly $400,000 in state sales tax.
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