The co-founder of a Crookston farm truck and implement dealership pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to failing to pay more than $150,000 in taxes from 2004 to 2007.
Jason W. Leas, 51, admitted to failing to file and pay excise taxes for Best Used Trucks of Minnesota, Inc., and filing a false individual federal tax return.
Leas declined comment when reached at his home in Crookston on Monday.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, from 2004 to 2007, Leas and Best Used Trucks purchased new end dump trailers and grain and gravel boxes from a Canadian manufacturer.
After selling the imported equipment, Best Used Trucks was supposed to pay a 12 percent excise tax. Leas admitted he was responsible to file for and pay the excise tax. In total, the Department of Justice said he admitted to failing to pay at least $80,088 in total federal excise taxes from 10 quarters from 2004 to 2006.
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Excise taxes are paid on specific goods, including some trucks.
Leas also pleaded guilty to willfully filing false information on his individual federal income tax in 2007. He did not report at least $120,151 in income for which he failed to pay $36,872 in taxes.
The plea agreement said from 2004 to 2007, Leas had two checking accounts for Best Used Trucks, using one of them to divert corporate receipts from Best Used Trucks and to buy and sell equipment not part of the business' ordinary sales. Leas failed to report income from those transactions on his personal tax returns for four years, resulting in $73,361 in unpaid taxes.
"To build faith in our nation's tax system, honest taxpayers need to be reassured that everyone is paying their fair share of taxes, whether it is in the form of income taxes or excise taxes," said Kelly R. Jackson, Special Agent in Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, St. Paul Field Office, in a press release. "The IRS-Criminal Investigation Division, together with the Department of Justice, will continue to investigate and prosecute those who violate our tax system."
Leas faces up to five years in prison for the three total counts -- failure to file a federal excise tax return, failure to pay a federal excise tax and filing a false individual federal income tax return.
