The Tax Times: The REAL Facts Regarding IRS Criminal Investigation

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

The REAL Facts Regarding IRS Criminal Investigation

On August we posted IRS Is Going After Tax Evaders, Not Honest Americans - Rettig Op-ed, where we discussed that IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig published an op-ed on Yahoo Finance: IRS sets the record straight: We’re going after tax-evaders, not honest Americans.

One issue that politicians and others have not covered is what exactly IRS Criminal Investigation does and to that end, we refer you to the IRS CI’s 2021 Annual report, which explores CI’s unique role in tax administration and its relationship to law enforcement more generally.

The bulk of what CI does in terms of time and agent hours is work on general tax fraud investigations, as this shows:

According Procedurally Taxing, Building a fraud case is time intensive and can often involve high profile people and businesses. CI also assists on non tax investigations like its Illegal Source Financial Crimes Program. According to the CI Annual Report, in these cases, “special agents’ investigations focus on individuals who receive income from illegal sources, such as embezzlement, bribery, and fraud. They also focus on money-laundering schemes, where individuals launder their ill-gotten gains by making the money appear as if it came from legitimate source.”

There is lots more in the report, including solid numbers on investigations, prosecutions and employee numbers including that the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) is comprised of nearly 3,500 employees worldwide, approximately 2,500 are Special Agents whose investigative jurisdiction includes tax, money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act laws.

Not 87,000 New Special Agents, As Falsely Reported Concerning The Recently Passed Inflation Reduction Act 2022.

CI is a key part of our tax system, with its employees investigating and at times recommending prosecution of criminal tax violations and other related financial crimes to the Department of Justice.

While most taxpayers will never interact with CI, it is an important part of a system that depends on the community at large respecting and complying with the law.

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