Springfield business owner sentenced for false tax return

The owner of a Springfield roofing company has been sentenced for filing a false income tax return with the IRS.

Kristian Caplinger, 37, who operated KC Roofing & Remodeling, was ordered last week to five years of probation, 10 weekends in prison, and a restitution order of $99,286, according to an IRS news release.

Caplinger pleaded guilty in January to one count of filing a false tax return for 2008. The form submitted in April 2009 failed to report $158,003 of income.

The money came from a contract with Stephen Schroff, former owner of ABC Roofing, who was separately sentenced in February to two years in prison and a $600,023 restitution order for tax fraud, according to Springfield Business Journal archives. During 2008, Schroff subcontracted Caplinger to install roofing shingles on newly constructed homes primarily in the Branson area, according to the release.

Caplinger admitted he cashed most of the $158,003 from Schroff, but knowingly omitted it from his tax return. The tax due on the payments was $52,360 for the 2008 tax year, according to the IRS.

Caplinger also admitted he willfully failed to disclose his actual 2008 income in a bankruptcy filing completed in November 2009. In the filing, he claimed an expense of $700 per month for self-employment taxes, which he actually did not pay, according to the release.