Key Graphics from TIGTA CI Employment Tax Report (3/27/17)

On Saturday, I posted a long blog entry on a TIGTA Report.  TIGTA Report on Criminal Enforcement Against Employment Tax Noncompliance (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 3/25/17), here.  In that blog entry, amid long excerpts from the report, I included several graphics from the TIGTA Report that I think are worth pulling out and posting in a separate blog entry because otherwise readers may not have focused on them in that very long blog entry.  Those graphics might be particularly useful for students or new practitioners in the tax crimes area.  In one case, I also provide the surrounding narrative for context (but refer readers to the earlier blog entry for more of the context narrative).

CI Employment Tax Investigations 2011-2015

Employment tax investigations represent a small portion CI casework. For example, in FY 2015, CI initiated 102 employment tax investigations, which is less than 3 percent of all initiated cases. In comparison, the top two priorities—identity theft and abusive return preparer fraud and questionable refund fraud—resulted in almost 1,800 new investigations and accounted for 47 percent of new initiations in FY 2015. Figure 5 shows the number of employment tax cases initiated and referred for prosecution from FYs 2011 through 2015.

   n18 Since actions on a specific investigation may cross fiscal years, the data shown in cases initiated may not always represent the same universe of cases shown in other actions within the same fiscal year.

Sources of CI Employment Tax Investigations 2011-2015

TFRP and CI Employment Tax Investigations 2010-2015

IRS Civil Division Fraud Referral Process

IRS CI Investigation and DOJ Referral Process