1) Tax liens;
2) Inability to deliver oil during peak heating season;
3) Pending sexual harassment lawsuit;
4) Previously settled a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by 5-women for $780,000.
There is certainly at lot going on at this company.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Owner of Fred Fuller Oil owes IRS $2.5 million in back taxes
By JOSEPH G. COTE
Staff Writer
HUDSON – The owner of a Hudson-headquartered oil company owes the Internal Revenue Service more than $2.5 million in back taxes.
The IRS recently filed liens against all property owned by Frederick J. Fuller, the owner of Fred Fuller Oil Inc., based on Tracy Lane in Hudson.
Fuller owes the government almost $2.6 million in taxes, along with penalties and interest, from 2006-08, according to documents filed at the Hillsborough County Registry of Deeds.
Fuller owes more than $1.7 million for 2006, $234,762 in 2007 and $569,671 in 2008. The liens were filed by IRS revenue officer Anita Perry on July 6, according to the registry records.
Another lien filed in 2010 shows Fuller owed $150,724 in taxes, penalties and interest for the 2004 tax year, according to records.
On Thursday, Fuller said the liens are a “personal tax situation, are not connected to the company in any way and will not affect customers.
“If the IRS thought there was a problem with Fred Fuller Oil Company, they would have attached that too,” he said. “All our customers are safe.”
The type of tax listed on all four liens are 1040, which is an individual tax return.
Fuller, who didn’t detail the specifics of his tax situation, said he expects two of the three liens to be “taken care of” on Monday when he meets with IRS officials. Further meetings and talks will be held on the rest of the back payments, he said.
“We’re in discussions with them,” he said.
Fuller said he suspects a competitor tipped off reporters about the back taxes.
He stressed that customers have nothing to worry about, including customers who have pre-buy contracts with the company or customers in the company’s budget program.
“We always treat everybody fair,” he said. “We didn’t get to be the largest independent retail company in the state without taking care of our customers.”
James Boffetti, a senior assistant attorney general who heads the Consumer Protection Bureau, said there’s every possibility that’s the case but is still talking with Fuller and his attorney about the specifics of the liens to make sure pre-buy contracts are safe.
“We definitely need to ask questions, and they’ve been more than willing to help answer our questions, and that’s a good sign,” Boffetti said.
Boffetti said his office has received a number of calls from customers asking whether their pre-buy contracts were protected. He said weak state laws around oil pre-buy contracts – and the fact that customers have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars when companies they had contracts with went bankrupt or ran into other financial difficulties – makes people more likely to be concerned.
Boffetti said a bill that was defeated by the House this year would have required oil companies to put pre-buy money in escrow accounts instead of commingling it with other funds.
This isn’t the first time Fuller has made headlines this year for something other than his oil company.
In May, he pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a female employee. The charges, which are still pending, accuse him with forcibly fondling a woman at the company’s headquarters in Hudson last summer.
Fred Fuller Oil & Propane is based in Hudson and has offices in Milford, Bridgewater, Derry, Goffstown, Laconia, Moultonborough and Northfield, according to the company’s website.
Joseph G. Cote can be reached at 594-6415 or jcote@nashua telegraph.com. Also follow Cote on Twitter (@Telegraph_JoeC).
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