SEATTLE — An Everett salesman who sold software allowing businesses to underreport their sales to avoid paying taxes was sentenced Friday to 18 months in federal prison.
John Yin, 66, also must pay back $3.4 million, along with restaurants who used his product.
Yin 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 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.
Yin pleaded guilty last year in U.S. District Court to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the government.
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