Business Tax Fraud Leads To Guilty Plea For Alexandria Man

ALEXANDRIA, VA — An Alexandria man pleaded guilty Thursday in relation to tax fraud at his Kingstowne-based information technology consulting business.

According to federal prosecutors, Najia Systems owner Samer Najia filed false individual income tax returns with the IRS from 2012 to 2018. Najia falsely claimed he paid $229,279 in individual income taxes but in reality owned that money to the IRS. To conceal the fraud, Najia provided false wage and tax statements to his accountant to misrepresent the taxes paid to the IRS.

Prosecutors say Najia also did not fulfill employment tax requirements by not filing employment tax returns for more than 24 quarters. In addition, Najia collected taxes from employees but did not pay the employee or employer portions of the taxes to the IRS. Employee taxes include Medicare, Social Security and federal income taxes, while the employer portion includes Medicare and Social Security taxes. The tax loss to the IRS was $915,671, according to court documents.

Najia's guilty plea was for a charge of filing a false individual income tax return in 2016. Najia faces up to three years in prison and will be sentenced on June 20 in Alexandria federal court.