A Houston tech business owner who spent years not filing tax returns is now headed to federal prison after authorities say he quietly sat on more than $1.6 million in payroll taxes that were supposed to go to the IRS.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas revealed on X on April 28, 2026, that the defendant has begun serving prison time in the case. Prosecutors had already secured a guilty plea in November 2025 after investigators tracked the missing tax money to his company.
According to a November 6, 2025 press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas, the defendant is Harry Lamar Curtis III, owner of Information Advisory Group LLC (IAG). Curtis admitted he failed to file any business tax returns for IAG starting in 2016 and withheld $1,647,142 in federal income and FICA taxes from employees’ paychecks that never made it to the IRS. At that time, the court set his sentencing for Feb. 12, 2026, and allowed him to remain on bond until then.
Federal agents were not just looking at the business. An IRS Criminal Investigation statement echoed the same core facts and identified IRS‑CI as the lead agency on the probe. IRS Criminal Investigation added that Curtis also acknowledged failing to file his own individual tax returns going back to 2008, and it stressed that cases involving unpaid "trust‑fund" payroll taxes sit high on the agency’s enforcement priority list.
Sentencing update
The April 28, 2026 update from federal prosecutors closed the loop: Curtis is now in prison for the payroll‑tax shortfall he admitted in court. The announcement, posted on X, linked back to the office’s statement and served as the first public confirmation that the case ended with a custodial sentence rather than probation or a fine‑only outcome.
Prosecutors previously said the matter was handled by the Southern District’s tax unit, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad Gray overseeing the case.
What this means
Under federal law, the money an employer withholds from workers’ paychecks for income tax and the employee share of FICA is not play money or a short‑term loan. It is treated as "trust‑fund" tax, essentially held in trust for the government until it is paid over.
Willfully failing to collect or turn over those taxes can be charged as a felony. According to law.cornell.edu, 26 U.S.C. § 7202 makes it a crime to willfully fail to collect or pay over tax, with potential prison time and significant fines on the table for offenders. On top of that, the IRS can reach for civil tools such as the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty to claw back unpaid payroll withholdings.
For Houston employers, payroll services, and anyone signing off on paychecks, the Curtis case is a pointed reminder: withheld payroll taxes are not extra operating cash. The government treats that money as its own from the moment it leaves an employee’s gross pay, and it expects every dollar to show up on time.
