Bradley Wayne Base

Sentenced. Base pleaded guilty to one count of failure to pay over tax and was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison, and must pay $469,799 in restitution to the IRS.

Introduction

Bradley Wayne Base, 58, of Augusta, Kansas, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison for collecting payroll taxes from his employees’ wages and never passing them on to the Internal Revenue Service . The sentence, announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas on October 21, 2026, came with a restitution obligation of $469,799 — the tax money his therapy-business employees saw withheld from every paycheck, between the first quarter of 2015 and the second quarter of 2023, that never reached the Treasury . The case is the employment-tax version of a betrayal story: the workers did their part, the withholding appeared on their stubs, and the owner kept the difference .

Background Information

According to court documents, Base pleaded guilty to one count of failure to pay over tax . He owned Sunflower Behavioral Health, which provides therapy services, and for more than eight years — from the first quarter of 2015 through the second quarter of 2023 — he withheld state and federal employment taxes from his employees’ wages while failing to pay those taxes over to the IRS . As part of his plea agreement, he must pay $469,799 in restitution to the IRS . The span matters to the case’s shape: this was not a single missed quarter during a cash crunch but a practice that outlasted eight years of pay periods .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

The conduct at the center of the case is the gap between what Base collected and what he remitted. Payroll taxes fund Social Security and unemployment insurance — the safety net employees are promised in exchange for the withholding line on their pay stubs, as the government framed it in announcing the sentence . U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser said that instead of looking out for his employees’ best interest, “Mr. Base took money they paid in taxes and stuffed his pockets” . The plea agreement’s restitution figure — $469,799 — is the arithmetic of that gap, and the 12-months-and-a-day sentence is what the government asked the failure to cost .

Public Reaction and Consequences

The enforcement side framed the case as a warning to other owners. IRS Criminal Investigation Kansas City Field Office Special Agent in Charge William Steenson said, “Employment tax fraud remains a top investigative priority for IRS Criminal Investigation,” and that when employers fail their responsibility, they jeopardize their employees’ Social Security benefits and “steal from the U.S. Treasury” . Kriegshauser’s own statement drew the line between the employees who paid and the owner who did not remit — the framing the sentence now embodies . The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation .

Current Status

Base, 58, is serving a 12-months-and-one-day federal sentence for failure to pay over tax, with $469,799 in restitution owed to the IRS under his plea agreement . The release does not describe the current operating status of Sunflower Behavioral Health or whether its employees were made whole for the withholding shown on their records . What is fixed is the disposition: a guilty plea, a year in federal prison, and a restitution obligation that follows him after release .

Impact on Their Career/Life

At 58, Base exits the case with a federal tax conviction, a prison term, and a restitution bill that outlives the sentence — and the business he owned while the withholding accumulated is now inseparable from the case that defined it. For the employees of Sunflower Behavioral Health, the damage runs through their own benefit records: the Social Security and unemployment-insurance credits the withheld taxes were supposed to fund. The case lands in the same enforcement current as the district’s other employment-tax prosecutions — owners who treated their workers’ withholding as working capital, and met prison for it.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Kansas, “Augusta businessman fails to forward payroll taxes to IRS,” October 21, 2026 — source