IRS & Department of Justice Clarify
Criminal Tax Enforcement Statistics

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice Tax Division issued a statement today to clarify some misconceptions about statistics that have been reported in various newsprint that quote Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) data.

That statement is as follows: "Less than 10 percent of the criminal tax investigations that IRS forwards for prosecution to the Tax Division are declined. The conviction rate in indicted tax fraud cases exceeds 90 percent. IRS and Tax Division analysts have compared the data regarding criminal tax cases contained in the IRS and the Department's databases and concluded that both agencies' records reflect similar declination and conviction rates."

The TRAC figures, which are derived from raw data supplied to TRAC by the Department of Justice, are not adjusted to exclude from their percentage calculations non- prosecution matters and cases that do not involve tax fraud referred by the IRS to the United States Attorneys.

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