National Profile and Trends

IRS Lags in Business Enforcement:

Audits of businesses continue their downward slide
Audits of corporations dropping
Audits of largest corporations fell again last year
IRS efforts to go after "passthrough" entities continue to fall
IRS attention to corporate negligence and fraud generally down

IRS priorities: efforts with business versus individuals:

Returns for individuals have higher audit rates than business returns
Across the board, business vs. individual returns receive much less attention
Business receipts dwarf income of individuals
Corporate share of federal income tax collections declining

Criminal and Civil Tax Prosecutions:

IRS tax prosecutions continue their downward dive
Criminal prosecution of corporate fraud rare
IRS prosecutions of tax, money laundering, monetary and drug offenses
Number of IRS criminal investigators do not explain trends
Trends in criminal versus civil IRS suits

Enforcement Trends for Individuals:

Audits of individuals: trends differ for regular versus correspondence audits
Regular vs correspondence audits of high income taxpayers
IRS efforts in document matching stabilize at much lower levels
Levies, liens and seizure activity resuming
Details on audit rates by examination classes (includes correspondence audits)
Details on audit rates by examination classes (excludes correspondence audits)
Changes in targeting of correspondence audits

Return Workload Up, but IRS Staff Continues to Decline:

Long term declines in number of IRS staff by position
Fewer revenue agents available to audit complex returns