Owner of Tennessee Mental Health Counseling Center Charged with Employment Tax Crimes

NASHVILLE – A former business owner was charged by a federal grand jury yesterday with eleven counts of willfully failing to account for and pay over employment taxes to the IRS.

According to court documents, from at least 2011 through 2023, Mari Ross-Alexander, of Columbia, South Carolina, was the owner and president of Ross Behavioral Group, a mental health counseling center with multiple locations in middle Tennessee. Alexander controlled Ross Behavioral Group’s financial affairs and was responsible for withholding Social Security, Medicare and federal income taxes from employees’ wages and paying them over to the IRS. From at least 2015 through 2020, Alexander withheld these taxes from her employees’ wages but did not fully pay the withheld taxes over to the IRS.

Each year, from at least 2015 through 2020, Ross-Alexander issued tax W-2’s and paystubs to the employees that showed taxes taken out of their pay, which falsely implied that the withheld taxes were paid over to the IRS.

In total, Ross-Alexander is alleged to have caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $1 million dollars.

If convicted on all counts, Alexander faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.  She also faces a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.

Acting U.S. Attorney Thomas J.  Jaworski for the Middle District of Tennessee and Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.

IRS Criminal Investigation is investigating the case with assistance from Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell T. Galloway of the Middle District of Tennessee and Trial Attorney Ashley J. Stein of the Tax Division are prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation. The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.