Enforcement Revenues Down, Criminal Investigations Up

Earlier this week, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) released their “Enforcement and Service Results” report for the 2011 fiscal year. This report details the total number of audits, criminal investigations, etc. for the last fiscal year.

To start, enforcement revenue collected was down to $55.2 billion (FY2011) from $57.6 billion in the 2010 fiscal year. Since the 2007 fiscal year, enforcement revenues have looked like this:

FY 2007 - $59.2 billion
FY 2008 - $56.4 billion
FY 2009 - $48.9 billion
FY 2010 - $57.6 billion
FY 2010 - $55.2 billion

Staffing for “key enforcement occupations” was down in the 2011 fiscal year as well. There were a total of 22,184 people in “key enforcement occupations” in 2011, down from 22,710 the year before. In the 2011 fiscal year, there were a total of 5,619 revenue officers, 13,867 revenue agents and 2,698 special agents.

A total of 1,564,690 individual returns were scrutinized in 2011, down from 1,581,394 the year before. This means that a total of 1.11% of all individual tax returns were examined by the IRS in the 2011 fiscal year. This is up significantly from FY 2001 and FY 2002, when less than 750,000 returns were examined.

If you posted an income of less than $200,000 in the 2011 fiscal year, then you had a 1.02% chance of having your return examined. If you posted income of $200,000 or higher, then you had a 3.93% chance of having your return examined. If you made over $1 million in 2011, then you had a 12.48% chance of having your return examined.

If you operated a business in 2011, then you had a 0.63% chance of having your return examined. A total of 62,445 business returns were examined in FY2011, up from 58,067 in FY2010.

If you ran a small corporation in 2011 (assets of less than $10 million), then you had just a 1.02% chance of having your return examined. If you ran a large corporation (assets of more than $10 million), then the chances of having your return examined jumped to 17.64%.

Subchapter S Returns had a 0.42% chance of being audited last year, while Partnership returns had a 0.40% chance of being examined.

In terms of enforcement actions, there were a total of 3,748,884 levies, 1,042,230 liens and 776 seizures in the 2011 fiscal year. Levies and seizures were both up from the 2010 fiscal year, while liens are down.

Prosecutions were recommended in a total of 3,410 IRS criminal investigations in 2011, up from 3,034 the year before. These recommended prosecutions had an overall conviction rate of 92.7%, with the average sentence coming in at a total of 25 months.

Source: IRS.gov

Filed under: General Knowledge