The NY Department of Finance's innovative technology sends Brooklyn bar owner to jail.

When one thinks of matchmaking eHarmony or even Bravo TV’s Patti Stanger comes to mind, but an innovative program developed by the New York City Department of Finance may help open up our minds a bit. Big Apple officials are on a mission to find businesses that cheat them out of revenue for services and thanks to the city’s newly developed data matching program that shouldn’t be a problem.

“We are building models, reforming processes and finding new ways to use data to identify the bad actors and refer them to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecution,” said Finance Commissioner David Frankel. And recently, the program identified Brooklyn pub, The Kettle Black, as an offender. Bar owner Thomas Casatelli was caught and plead guilty to pocketing $470K. He failed to remit about 70 percent of the sales tax collected from bar patrons and submitted false returns with the state. Casatelli agreed to payback over $1.3 million in taxes, interest and penalties for under-reported sales taxes that dated back as far as June 2005.

This is far from the end of Mr. Casatelli’s tax battle. It turns out he paid most of his bar staff under the table—failing to collect withholding tax or unemployment insurance tax. But wait there’s more…he also omitted his own personal income tax returns. Casatelli got charged with one count of grand larceny and another count for filing a false instrument. He faces up to 19 years in the joint.

Will data matching programs be the blueprint for cash-strapped city and state officials looking to rake in the dough? Only time will tell. We’ll continue to keep you posted on any new sales tax technological advances.