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New Report on IRS Criminal Enforcement


The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) recently released a report on criminal enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service. It turns out that the IRS has been referring fewer cases for criminal prosecution in recent years, largely due to Congressional budget cuts that have led to a 16 percent decline in the number of criminal investigators at the agency since 2010. Referrals sent to federal prosecutors declined from 13.3 per million population in Fiscal Year 2013 to 9.2 per million in Fiscal Year 2015, which is the lowest level seen during the Obama administration. You can use TRAC’s IRS criminal enforcement tool to examine the data in a number of different ways, including a breakdown by federal district.

As readers of Nota Bene may already know, TRAC is a research organization at Syracuse University that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to gather data and prepare reports on various government activities. You can learn more by visiting TRAC’s About Us page.

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