Just a gentle reminder that it is time to call your CPA and Tax Lawyer.
It seems that federal prosecutors, and IRS criminal investigators, are in an eerie collusion to have IRS tax violations prosecuted during the month of April—perhaps as a gentle reminder to regular tax-paying citizens (not the huge corporations that don’t pay taxes) that they better “get it right” for the IRS.
On March 11, 2015, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University reported that for the past ten years taxpayers have been prosecuted an average of 201 times during the month of April as compared to the 138 prosecutions averaged during the month of September, the next closest month.
Year after year federal prosecutors bring more prosecutions during the proverbial “tax season” than any other yearly period; in fact, two-thirds more prosecutions in April than in January.
Coincidence? Probably not. Since 1994, IRS prosecutions in April have been substantially higher than any other month. The Obama administration has been more aggressive in IRS prosecutions than its two predecessors: the Clinton and Bush administrations. The Bush administration had the fewest overall IRS prosecutions while such prosecutions began to rise shortly after Obama assumed office, rising to 2010 prosecutions in 2013.
Alabama sported the two top U.S. district court jurisdictions (Middle and Southern) for the most IRS prosecutions while one of Mississippi’s jurisdictions (Southern) came in third.
The following are the top ten lead charges in IRS prosecutions:
• Fraud and false statements (26 U.S.C. 7206);
• Conspiracy to defraud the Government claims (18 U.S.C. 286);
• Attempt to evade or defeat tax (26 U.S.C. 7201);
• False, fictitious or fraudulent claims (18 U.S.C. 257);
• Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud U.S. (18 U.S.C. 371)
• Public money, property or records (18 U.S.C. 641);
• Fraud or related activity – id documents (18 U.S.C. 1028)
• Laundering of monetary instruments (18 U.S.C. 1956);
• Structuring transactions to evade reporting requirement (31 U.S.C. 6324);
• Fraud by wire, radio, or television (18 U.S.C. 1343).
Of these charges, the one showing the greatest increase over the past year was “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud U.S.”—the same offense that has seen an 888 percent increase in prosecutions over the past five years, according to TRAC.
One piece of personal, not legal, advice: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”