State Brands Flashcom Co-Founder as San Juan's Top Tax Avoider

Feb. 16, 2012, UPDATE: Sachs' name no longer appears on the state's list of top tax avoiders.

A co-founder of Flashcom Inc.—a now-defunct provider of high-speed Internet service—is San Juan Capistrano's lone entry on California's latest list of top tax avoiders.

Andra R. Sachs owes the state $1.15 million, most of it from profits on selling $9 million of Flashcom stock 11 years ago, according to court documents. Sachs has appealed the Franchise Tax Board ruling, contending she lived in Nevada when the stock was sold.

Sachs currently serves as director of a business in San Juan Capistrano called Jungle Motors, which, according to its business filing with the city, is owned by Bradford Hans Sachs.

According to her attorney, Andra Sachs was "forcibly ousted" from Flaschcom in August 1999 by her husband, who filed for separation three months later. Just before leaving the company, which she had helped launch, her child died in a tragic accident, he said.

"Ms. Sachs had a very rough 1999," her attorney, Walter Weiss, told the Board of Equalization at a September 2009 hearing. It was for those reasons that she left California to start a new life in Nevada, spending only about 25 percent of her time in California to wrap up business dealings, he said.

Andra Sachs isn't a stranger to the courts. She's been involved in two defamation lawsuits and has been repeatedly cited for not keeping her dogs on a leash and for building-code violations. In 2009, she was listed as a co-defendent with Bradford for violating zoning codes. Her divorce from Bradford was finalized in Orange County Superior Court in 2010.

A story in the Orange County Register in February 2010 also identified the couple as partners in a new San Juan Capistrano-based business venture, Plug In Solutions. According to the website of a related company called Plug-In Supply, the Sachses' venture shut down in April 2010.

Plug-In Supply said it terminated ties with the Sachses' company "after they breached our partnership agreement by not paying suppliers, cheating dealers and shipping poor quality product," the website reads.

Sachs has plenty of company on the deadbeat tax front. Over the past year, Californians skipped out on $6.5 billion in state personal and corporate income taxes, a sum that would make a huge dent in the state deficit, officials said. Another $1.4 billion was owed by retailers who typically failed to pass along sales taxes paid by their customers.