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If it feels like you're seeing an inordinate number of stories about criminal tax prosecutions lately, expect to read even more soon. IRS prosecutions spike in April, possibly as a not-so-gentle reminder during filing season that there can be a big price to pay for tax evasion and tax fraud.
A data analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University shows that in April the number of criminal prosecutions coming from IRS investigations is consistently significantly higher than it is in January.
The director of the TRAC Research Center, Susan Long, said the pattern isn't coincidence. It's also not because the IRS just found juicy cases to refer to prosecutors from the current tax season — the lead time is way longer than that.
"Back in 1973, we got IRS manuals, and they actually talked about coordinating [prosecutions] during tax season to make people think about their responsibility under the tax law," Ms. Long said.
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