Date: November 27, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Trenton, NJ — A New York man today admitted evading personal income taxes for the tax years 2016 through 2018, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced. Khuram Raja of Locust Valley, New York, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi in Trenton federal court to an information charging him with one count of tax evasion. According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court: During tax years 2016, 2017, and 2018, Raja owned and operated a company that provided construction and building services. Raja earned income from the company, and filed business tax returns for the company for tax years 2016 and 2017 that materially understated the company's income. Raja failed to report certain taxable income that the company received in cash and checks cashed at check-cashing facilities, and deducted expenses from the company's reported income that included certain personal expenses that were not, in fact, expenses of the company. Raja failed to file business tax returns for tax year 2018 by the applicable deadline. Raja did not file personal income tax returns for tax years 2016, 2017, and 2018 by the applicable deadlines, and failed to report the income from the company that would have flowed through to his personal income tax returns. As a result of this conduct, Raja evaded $543,815 in personal income taxes for tax years 2016, 2017, and 2018. The charge of tax evasion carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the gross pecuniary gain or loss, whichever is greatest. Sentencing is scheduled for April 16, 2024. U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Tammy Tomlins, with the investigation leading to today's guilty plea. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine M. Romano of the U.S. Attorney's Office Health Care Fraud in Newark. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
