The owner of a Rogers Park tax business has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $3.6 million from federal loan programs designed to provide relief to businesses struggling financially during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Farooq Khan, 31, faces a possible sentence of four to five years in prison for defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. He admitted he submitted false applications for himself and other people who paid him kickbacks of up to 20% of the money they got.

Khan pocketed more than $1 million in fraudulent loan proceeds, prosecutors said. He also arranged about $2.6 million in loans for people who used fake or insolvent companies to get loans from the corruption-riddled PPP and EIDL programs, which were overseen by the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021.

PPP loans were intended to cover payroll expenses. EIDL loans were for normal operating expenses like health care benefits, rent and utilities. Generally, the loans were forgivable, meaning they didn’t have to be repaid.

Court records highlighted Khan’s work for an Uber driver he was friends with. The driver got a $141,000 loan in 2021 after Khan submitted an application for a defunct taxi company owned by the man’s late father. The driver kicked back $31,200, or about 20% of the total, to Khan, prosecutors said.

The application falsely claimed the company had seven employees with a payroll of $679,651 in the previous year. Khan submitted the application through his firm, Hannan Tax Services Inc. He included phony federal income tax records in the application.

Khan had applied for another $588,000 in fraudulent loans that didn’t result in payments, prosecutors said.

Court records don’t identify Khan’s customers, including the Uber driver, but nine of them have the same last name, Khan, according to Illinois corporate records listing the presidents of the companies that got the loans. No criminal charges have been filed publicly in federal court against any of those people.

In his plea agreement last month, Khan said he would pay the government $1.2 million, along with $629,000 the government seized from his bank accounts. A federal warrant to search Khan’s bank accounts was unsealed last week. The warrant provided detailed allegations against him.

Khan and his lawyer couldn’t be reached for comment.

Last month, the government brought another case against a suburban trio accused of filing fraudulent PPP loan applications for other people in exchange for kickbacks.