IRS 2018 Data Book Release; Table 18 on Criminal Investigation Program Statistics (5/20/19)

The IRS has released its 2018 Data Book.  The Data Book may be accessed here.

For readers of this blog, the key data are presented in Table 18: Criminal Investigation Program, by Status or Disposition.

The link to Table 18 for each of the years 1995-2018 is here for those wanting a deep dive into the data from year to year.

The Table 18 spreadsheet for 2018 for may be downloaded on that page.   Here is a cut and paste of the data.  (Note that the formatting is a little off, but the data should be easily understood.

Table 18.  Criminal Investigation Program, by Status or Disposition, Fiscal Year 2018
Status or disposition [1]	Total	Legal source tax crimes [2]	Illegal source financial crimes [3]	Narcotics-related financial crimes [4]
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Investigations initiated	2,886	1,099	1,064	723
Investigations completed	3,051	1,197	1,086	768
Referrals for prosecution	2,130	680	816	634
Investigations completed without prosecution	921	517	270	134
Indictments and informations [5]	2,011	636	765	610
Convictions	1,879	668	725	486
Sentenced	2,111	774	787	550
Incarcerated [6]	1,732	614	635	483
Percentage of those sentenced who were incarcerated [6]	82.0	79.3	80.7	87.8
[1]  Investigations may cross fiscal years. An investigation initiated one fiscal year may not be indicted, convicted, or sentenced until a subsequent fiscal year. Therefore, the disposition (completions, indictments/informations, convictions, sentences) of investigations shown in this table may be related to investigations initiated, completed, indicted, or convicted in prior fiscal years.
[2]  Under the Legal Source Tax Crimes Program, IRS Criminal Investigation identifies, investigates, and assists in the prosecution of crimes involving legal industries, legal occupations, and, more specifically, legally earned income associated with the violation of Title 26 (tax violations) and Title 18 (tax-related violations) of the U.S. Code. The Legal Source Tax Crimes Program also includes employment tax cases and those cases that threaten the tax system, such as Questionable Refund Program cases, unscrupulous return preparers, and frivolous filers/nonfilers who challenge the legality of the filing requirements.
[3]  Under the Illegal Source Financial Crimes Program, IRS Criminal Investigation identifies, investigates, and assists in the prosecution of crimes involving proceeds derived from illegal sources other than narcotics. These encompass all tax and tax-related violations, as well as money laundering and currency violations under the following statutes: Title 26 (tax violations); Title 18 (tax-related and money laundering violations); and Title 31 (currency violations) of the U.S. Code. The utilization of forfeiture statutes to deprive individuals and organizations of illegally obtained assets is also linked to the investigation of criminal charges within this program.
[4]  Under the Narcotics-Related Financial Crimes Program, IRS Criminal Investigation seeks to identify, investigate, and assist in the prosecution of the most significant narcotics-related tax and money laundering offenders. The IRS derives authority for this program from the statutes for which it has jurisdiction: Title 26 (tax violations); Title 18 (tax-related and money laundering violations); and Title 31 (currency violations) of the U.S. Code. IRS Criminal Investigation also devotes resources to high-level multiagency narcotics investigations warranting Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) designation in accordance with OCDETF Program reimbursable funding.
[5]  Both “indictments” and “informations” are accusations of criminal charges. An “indictment” is an accusation made by a Federal prosecutor and issued by a Federal grand jury. An “information” is an accusation brought by a Federal prosecutor without the requirement of a grand jury.
[6]  The term “incarcerated” may include prison time, home confinement, electronic monitoring, or a combination thereof.
SOURCE:  Criminal Investigation, Communications and Education Division.
JAT Comments: 1.  On the 2018 data, I have no comments. 2.  I have a spreadsheet whereby I compare certain of the line items from year to year.  The caveat is that statistics may be misleading.  All I do is compile the data (and in two lines derive the percentages which compares in the one percentage the IRS offers).  Here it is Total 2005-2018 Total 2012-2018 2005-2018 Average 2012-2018 Average 1 Indictments 13,816 987 8,264 1,181 2 Convictions 12,445 889 7,688 1,098 3 Percentage Convicted (l. 2 / l. 1) 90.1% 90.1% 93.0% 93.0% 4 Sentenced 12,419 887 7,678 1,097 5 Incarcerated 9,862 704 6,108 873 6 Percentage Incarcerated (l. 4 / l. 5) 79.4% 79.4% 79.6% 79.6%