Utah outdoor retailer accused of evading $1.8m in taxes

Date: Oct. 9, 2024

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St. George, UT - A federal grand jury in St. George returned an indictment charging a Southern Utah business owner with tax crimes.

According to court documents, Phyllip Hallman Heaton of Washington City, Utah, owns and operates Zion Outfitter, an outdoor retail and rental shop near the entrance of Zion National Park. It is alleged that, between 2018 and 2022, Heaton underreported over $5.4 million in sales. He did so by providing his tax-return preparers with profit and loss statements that underreported Zion Outfitter's gross receipts, falsely representing to his tax preparers that the profit and loss statements were accurate, signing and authorizing the filing of tax returns with the IRS that he knew were false, and structuring cash deposits into Zion Outfitter's checking account. This resulted in Heaton evading over $1.8 million in taxes.

Heaton is charged with five counts of evasion of assessment of income tax and five counts of fraud and false statements. His initial appearance on the indictment is scheduled for Oct. 28, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. before a U.S. Magistrate Judge at the St. George Courthouse.

U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins for the District of Utah made the announcement.

The case is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

Assistant United States Attorney Stephen P. Dent of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah is prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.