IRS Looking to Refer More Cases to Criminal Investigation Unit

The IRS wants to increase the number of cases referred from audits and the civil side of its operation to its Criminal Investigation division.

Currently those fraud referrals comprise about 7% of the division’s caseload, said Don Fort, chief of CI at the Internal Revenue Service. There are efforts underway to increase that number, Fort said, noting that this is also a priority for IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. Fort spoke June 21 at a tax controversy forum hosted by the New York University School of Professional Studies.

• Richard E. Zuckerman, principal deputy assistant attorney general at Department of Justice Tax Division, said there are times when he is questioned why a case is being worked on the civil side, as opposed to the criminal side.
• “That’s an issue that we’re trying to look into a lot more closely than perhaps we have in the past,” Zuckerman said at the conference.