Tax evasion charges dropped against funeral home owner

State drops 14 charges in case against area funeral home owner

The state dismissed 14 charges of tax evasion against the owner of Legacy Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Soddy-Daisy in July, one year after the Tennessee Department of Revenue special agents arrested Cade Coulter Williamson, 42, at the funeral home.

“There was no crime committed, and I believe the state recognized that,” Williamson’s attorney, Bryan Hoss, said. “These business transactions were not straightforward, but rather complicated. So he repaid the state what was owed in one lump sum. Full restitution has been made.”

The indictment from July 2019 lists 14 counts of tax evasion for amounts ranging from $265.26 for the month of April 2014 to $6,947.54 for 2015. All told, the 14 charges alleged Williamson owed sales tax to the state of $17,944.38.

In the announcement of the indictment last year, state officials said Williamson could have been sentenced to a maximum of two years in the state penitentiary and fined up to $3,000 for each count of tax evasion if he had been convicted.

In addition to the Legacy Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Soddy-Daisy, Williamson owns the Wann Funeral Home and Cremation Center in St. Elmo. Williamson and his wife, Shawn Williamson, bought Wann from John Hargis, who had purchased the business from Jimmy Wann in 1972.

Cade Williamson is a fifthgeneration funeral director, with his great, great grandfather, R.J. Coulter, starting the tradition at R.J. Coulter Undertaking Co. in Dayton, Tennesee in 1897.

The Williamsons market their businesses as the only locally owned funeral homes and on-site crematories north of the river in Hamilton County.