Streamlining Legal Review of Criminal Tax Cases Would Strengthen Enforcement of Federal Tax Laws

摘要

IRS expends extensive resources investigating many criminal tax cases which do not lead to prosecutive recommendations or convictions. While this is understandable and unavoidable to some extent, readily available legal assistance during investigations could reduce those resource expenditures and improve IRS' productivity. The existing legal review process for criminal tax cases consists almost entirely of sequential, post-investigative reviews by three separate groups of Government attorneys. This process is time-consuming and duplicative and needs to be restructured. GAO presents various alternatives for doing so.