Monett company fined over excise tax

Friend Tire Company in Monett must pay $100,000 in criminal fines by Aug. 6

Friend Tire Company Inc., located at 11 Industrial Dr. in Monett, must pay $100,000 in criminal fines by Aug. 6.

The penalty is the result of sentencing imposed Aug. 1 by U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. England.

According to a news release from the Office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, the company was fined for its failure to file federal excise tax returns related to the import and resale of approximately 5,000 highway-use truck tires.

According to the release, a corporate officer on behalf of Friend Tire Company admitted in a Feb. 9 guilty plea that the company didn't file federal excise tax returns for the four quarters of 1995 as required by resale of 4,978 truck tires imported from Canada.

In a plea agreement, Friend Tire Company admitted that it owes a total of $159,847.63 in federal excise tax on the tires in question.

Friend Tire Company Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Yokohama Tire Corp., which sells passenger, truck, farm and off-road tires at the wholesale and retail levels.

(The preceding article originally appeared in the Aug. 2 issue of the SBJ Daily Update.)