CHARLESTON — The owner of a moving services company in Parkersburg was sentenced Thursday to prison for filing a false income tax return, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia said.

Christopher Daniels, 52, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to one year in prison to be followed by one year of supervised release, United States Attorney Will Thompson said. Daniels previously paid the $280,088 in ordered restitution and also was ordered to pay a $75,000 fine.

According to court documents and statements made in court, from at least 2013 through at least 2020, Daniels owned and operated Accedia Moving Services LLC. Daniels admitted that he falsely claimed or inflated business expenses to report a taxable income loss of $18,898 on his 2017 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, Thompson said.

Daniels admitted his business should have reported a profit of $187,771 for tax year 2017, Thompson said.

Daniels further admitted he reported false information on his U.S. Individual Income Tax Return forms for tax years 2016 through 2019. Daniels reported taxable income losses totaling $164,491 for those tax years when he should have reported income totaling $410,459, Thompson said.

The income taxes owed and due total $148,653, Thompson said.

Daniels admitted to failing to properly withhold $119,417.46 in employment taxes, including federal taxes and the employer-due portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes. Daniels also admitted to failing to pay $12,018 in West Virginia Workers’ Compensation premiums on those unreported wages, Thompson said.

Daniels admitted the total amount of tax liability he wrongly withheld from state and federal entities is about $280,088, Thompson said.

Thompson commended the investigative work of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation.

Senior United States District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. imposed the sentence. Assistant United States Attorney Kathleen Robeson prosecuted the case. Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Nathan of the U.S. Attorney Office’s Financial Litigation Unit coordinated restitution.