The Tax Times: IRS Criminal Investigation Issues Annual Report

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

IRS Criminal Investigation Issues Annual Report

The Internal Revenue Service today announced the release of its IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Annual Report for fiscal year 2013, reflecting significant increases in enforcement actions against tax criminals and a robust rise in convictions, including identity theft.

CI investigates potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in a manner to foster confidence in the tax system and compliance with the law.

High points of fiscal year 2013 include:

a 12.5 percent increase in investigations initiated compared to the prior year.
a nearly 18 percent gain in prosecution recommendations compared to the prior year.
CI initiated 5,314 cases
CI recommended 4,364 cases for prosecution.
These increases were accomplished at a time when agent resources decreased more than 5 percent.
Meanwhile, convictions rose more than 25 percent compared to the prior year.

The conviction rate is especially important because it reflects the quality of our case work, our teamwork with law enforcement partners and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, and it represents an increase over 2011 and 2012,” said Richard Weber, Chief of Criminal Investigation.

CI continues to play a vital role in the fight against identity theft. CI initiated over 1,400 investigations and recommended prosecution of over 1,250 individuals who were involved in identity theft crimes during fiscal 2013.

In addition, the 36-page report summarizes a wide variety of IRS CI activity on a range of tax crimes, money laundering, public corruption, terrorist financing and narcotics trafficking financial crimes during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2013.

“Our cases involved individuals and corporations from all segments of society. They led us into corporate board rooms, offices of public officials, tax preparation businesses, identity theft gangs and narcotics trafficking organizations,” Weber said.

"This report highlights some of the many noteworthy cases that were completed by CI, which is just the tip of the iceberg of the complex cases we completed this past year,”

IRS-CI continues to make our mark in history as the best financial investigators in the world."

Have Un-Reported Income?