Update: Wednesday, 4:30 p.m. -- Happy’s Pizza issued a statement Wednesday calling the charges "baseless”. It appeared on WWJ's website.
“We are gratified that the speculation and innuendo that accompanied the federal government’s raid of our corporate offices has ended. In August of 2010, nearly 30 DEA, ATF and IRS agents stormed the corporate offices of Happy’s Pizza Franchise and seized all business and personal records to much hype and media speculation. Today, after nearly three years of investigation and with the full cooperation of our company, it was finally revealed that neither the DEA nor the ATF found any evidence of wrongdoing."
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The founder of Happy’s Pizza, a Farmington Hills-based chain, can't be very happy.
The Oakland Press reports that founder Happy Asker and four others, including the owner of a Warren franchise, were charged by the feds with allegedly scheming to defraud the government of taxes.
The paper reports that the feds charged that Asker and company devised a scheme to underreport taxable income and payroll taxes from $2.1 million in wages from more than 50 Happy’s Pizza locations in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere.
According to the 62-count document alleges that the defendants operated a scheme from June 2004 through April 2011 in which they instructed franchise partners to keep two sets of accounting books and records, the paper reported.
The question is: After all this, maybe the pizza chain can be called: Tentatively Sad. -- Allan Lengel
