Grand Jury indicts RML Warehousing CEO for evading $2.7M in taxes

The head of a Millersburg warehousing business has been indicted for charges that he evaded paying $2.7 million in taxes.

Ivan Rempel, president and CEO of RML, was indicted on Sept. 30 by a federal grand jury on one count of tax evasion and nine counts of failure to pay and account for employee taxes, according to a statement released Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The maximum penalty under federal law for each offense is five years of imprisonment, a term of supervised released following imprisonment and a fine.

Rempel, 76, a resident of Camp Hill, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Monday, according to case files reviewed by Central Penn Business Journal. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ordered the jury selection for Rempel’s trial to take place on Jan. 5 in the Harrisburg Federal Building on Third and Walnut Streets.

The indictment alleges that during his time as chief executive of RML since the early 1990s, Rempel evaded payment of approximately $2.7 million to the IRS, according to U.S. Attorney David J. Freed.

Rempel is charged with habitually failing to pay employment taxes to the IRS that he withheld from his employees’ paychecks from 1991 to 2017, and failing to file required forms with the IRS to account for employment taxes.

The IRS reportedly began imposing levies on certain personal and business bank accounts in 2017 to collect money owed to the federal government. Rempel allegedly attempted to hide the money by taking payment from customers and turning it into cashier checks and depositing them into other bank accounts and quickly make payroll. Rempel allegedly would balance out his bank accounts so that federal officials had no money to collect.

Federal prosecutors say Rempel began moving money to overseas bank accounts to avoid paying the employment taxes he withheld from his employees’ paychecks.

The case was investigated by the IRS. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Consiglio is prosecuting the case.

Attempts to reach Rempel and his attorney, Jordan D. Cunningham of Harrisburg law firm Cunningham & Chernicoff, were not successful Wednesday.