Former businesswoman sentenced to prison for failure to pay taxes

A 72-year-old woman was sentenced to three months in prison for failing to pay employment taxes on businesses that were operated in part within Arizona. 

The prison sentence, handed down to Sarah Ellen Hightower Hill on Wednesday, will be followed by three years of supervised release.

Hightower Hill pleaded guilty to failure to account for and pay employment taxes. She was ordered to pay more than $909,000 in restitution to the government.

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Hightower Hill was the majority owner of several companies, between the tax years 2009 through 2011, including Chandler Hill Partners, Inc.; Atlanta Career Specialists, LLC; Houston Career Specialists, LLC; the DHI Group, LLC; IBA Associates, LLC; Morales Career Management Group, LLC; the MHMP Group, LLC; Search Specialists of Dallas, LLC; and the Virginia Search Specialists, LLC.

According to the plea agreement, Hightower Hill, for each of the entities listed above, failed to account for, collect and pay more than $909,000 constituting the employee and employer portion of the employment taxes that should have been paid to the IRS. 

The investigation in this case was conducted by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation.