13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Brownsburg couple charged over sales taxes

Brownsburg couple charged over sales taxes

David Macanally/Eyewitness News NightBeat

Brownsburg, March 3, 2005 - Bare Necessities sells white wedding gowns but the state says the store's owners didn't provide enough green for the tax man.

The state charged Bare Necessities owner Harlan Kays and his wife Phyllis with non-payment and not keeping records.  The store allegedly charged sales tax but never sent the money to the state, which claims they owe $12,000 in sales tax for the last two years alone.

By phone Harlan Kays told Eyewitness News his chronic fatigue syndrome was the reason he didn't pay.  "I haven't hardly been able to do anything the last years here," Kays said.

In court papers Kays admits records are scattered and he did not really have any records. The state says the couple paid no sales taxes for 15 years.

Last month the Eyewitness News investigators revealed how some Hoosiers are living in luxury while owing hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in taxes to Indiana. They're not prosecuted. So why go after the Kays for $12,000?

"Some of that is beyond the department's control," according to Cathy Henninger, spokesperson for the State Department of Revenue.  "It is up to the prosecutor if they want to take it up as a criminal case."

Henninger says counties only prosecute about ten-percent of the cases the state sends them.  But the Marion County prosecutor says the Kays case is clear.  The Kays disagree, calling the charges "trumped up."