Question

In 1999, Judge William Webster issued a report on his review of CI's operations (“Review of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division” (Publ. 338; 4-1999)) and concluded that CI had drifted away from its primary mission of investigating criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code. Judge Webster recommended that CI refocus on its primary mission of investigating criminal violations of the internal revenue laws.

CI has since addressed many of the Webster Report concerns by creating a revised mission statement, developing a compliance strategy designed to guide the function to develop and investigate cases that foster confidence in the tax system, reducing the resources placed on drug-related investigations, publicizing the results of its investigations, and conducting an empirical study to determine the effect investigations have on voluntary compliance. CI now seeks to emphasize the importance of developing and investigating those cases that have the greatest effect on tax administration, whether the sources of income in those investigations are derived from legal or illegal activities.

What do you think CI's mission should be? How much of the CI focus should be on non-tax crimes?

Answer 1

Webster's report on “Review of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division” says that they are drifting from their main mission of investigating criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code.

The criminal violations of IRS would include identifying the tax laws non-compliance as one of the most important missions as that affects the revenues very badly. Also, as per one of the statements by the Head of CI in 2007, 59% of the criminal cases started by CI have a tax component in it. So, the substantial amount of criminal cases of IRS has tax non-compliance and so the main focus of CI should on Tax Non-Compliance and comparatively lesser focus on non-tax crimes.