The Arlington County treasurer will meet with the county prosecutor this week to press for legal action against a closed Arlington coffee shop.
Murkey Coffee owner Nicholas Cho owes Arlington $54,000 in unpaid taxes, according to the county’s assessment. Cho still owes back taxes on a shop that closed in 2009 and the county is going to court after efforts to work out a payment agreement failed, Arlington Treasurer Frank O’Leary said.
The county is also considering pursuing legal action against Wall Street Deli, another closed Arlington restaurant, though officials in the treasurer’s office say they aren’t ready to present the case to prosecutors, O’Leary said. Together, the two businesses owe more than $110,000 in unpaid taxes to Arlington.
Cho would be the second Arlington restaurateur the county has taken to court in the past year. Roberto Donna was convicted of owing Arlington more than $156,000 in unpaid taxes earlier this year after closing his Crystal City restaurant, Bebo Trattoria, in 2009. Donna, now working as a chef at the newly opened Galileo III in the District, has been paying the county $500 a month since July.
The Donna case was the first time the treasurer’s office succeeded in settling a case involving unpaid meal taxes in court, and it has encouraged him to pursue other restaurant owners who owe the county tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes.
“I think it was a matter of getting [the attorney] to take the first case,” said Deputy Treasurer Kim Rucker. Now, the officials at the treasurer’s office “kind of have this as an open avenue for us when we need it,” she said.
Arlington doesn’t always pursue legal action to get its meals taxes paid. There are currently nine other restaurants in debt to the county, but those owners “are making an honest effort to pay it,” O’Leary said.
The meals tax differs from most business taxes in that the law allows the county to hold an individual personally responsible for the business-related tax, according to Rucker.
In an e-mail, Cho said he has contacted the treasurer’s office to work out “outstanding issues.” O’Leary indicated that the county and Cho had failed to reach any agreements.
Cho has had tax problems before. In 2009, he was arrested in Washington on 82 counts of tax fraud and was forced to close another Murkey Coffee establishment on Capitol Hill.
