The owners of Yoga to the People — a profitable nationwide yoga business — could be teaching their exercise classes behind bars for decades … ’cause the feds arrested them on tax evasion charges.
Gregory Gumucio, Michael Anderson and Haven Soliman were rounded up Wednesday by federal agents and charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS and five counts of tax evasion. The trio faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
According to a criminal complaint, obtained by TMZ, the execs raked in $20 million from 2013 to 2020 and lived high off the hog.
Prosecutors claim Gumucio doled out nearly $270,00 to United Airlines and $76,000 on hotels. Gumucio also held Denver Broncos season tickets worth over $40,000, the complaint says. All three execs allegedly paid for personal expenses using business accounts.
Problem was, according to prosecutors, all three failed to file individual or business tax returns … and they didn’t pay any income taxes between 2013 and 2020.
Yoga to the People allegedly avoided paying taxes by taking customer cash payments that were stuffed inside tissue boxes and passed around during classes. Teachers were allegedly paid in cash and off the books.
Between 2015 and 2020, Gumucio didn’t report $1.6 million in income, and Anderson and Soliman had $2.1 million and $961,000 in unreported income, respectively. They owed $431,000, $603,000, and $196,000 in taxes, respectively, prosecutors said.
Gumucio opened Yoga to the People in Manhattan in 2006, touting it as a donation-based studio, which became all the rage and branched out to California, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, and Washington state.