State of Connecticut
In the 2010 fiscal year ending in June, Connecticut collected $1.2 million in fines from more than 370 companies based elsewhere and doing business here without having registered.
The law applies to corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability companies and partnerships, and statutory trusts doing business in Connecticut, which must pay a fee before transacting business here.
Nearly 47,500 “foreign” entities are currently registered with the Connecticut secretary of state. Beginning last October, Connecticut increased fines on out-of-state companies transacting business in Connecticut without registering, up to $300 for every month they are not in compliance with the law. In fiscal 2010 average fines were up 18 percent to more than $3,000.
A Florida company called Stillmeadow Farm I Inc. was assessed the largest fine at roughly $50,000.
“The fines help hold these companies accountable to Connecticut consumers and level the playing field for in-state businesses,” said Susan Bysiewicz, Connecticut secretary of state, in a prepared statement. “This improves the overall business climate in our state for those entrepreneurs that want to start a small firm and succeed.”
First Funding Corp. II
A former Stamford company now based in New York was fined $150,000 for assisting in the preparation of a fraudulent tax return.
Judge Alvin Thompson also gave two years probation to First Funding Corp. II, an investment bank that is now based in Bedford Hills, N.Y. The company pleaded guilty in March, after prosecutors said First Funding”™s sole shareholder Charles Jones used a company credit card to incur expenses of a Canadian company of which Jones is a director. First Funding recorded those expenses on its own books, despite Jones requesting and receiving reimbursement from the Canadian company.
The case was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney”™s office for the state of Connecticut under David Fein.
American Boiler, Industrial Property Management
Fein”™s office also won a guilty plea on tax fraud charges from the owner of American Boiler Inc. and Industrial Property Management, which performed work for the Stratford Army Engine Plant.
Easton resident James McCarthy, 62, was accused of underreporting revenue and income for Stratford-based American Boiler, instead depositing checks for AB work performed between 1999 and 2002 into the account of Industrial Property Management. Prosecutors said he used the money for his own benefit.
McCarthy is scheduled to be sentenced in mid-October; he is eligible for up to six years in prison and a fine of nearly $1 million.
