How long do IRS criminal investigations take? So the IRS really picks and chooses its cases. And criminal investigations are very personal to the agents that work them. The IRS gives their criminal agents a lot of freedom to build and develop their cases. What the government wants is when it brings criminal tax charges is to be able to secure conviction.
So it gives its agents the license to work as much as they need to, within reason, to build the best case they can, to turn it over to the U.S. attorney in order to secure a conviction. So as a result of that, criminal investigations can take years. There’s a lot of fact-finding. There’s a lot of developing of the information. There’s a lot of witness interviews. There’s a lot of third parties. And they’re really trying to build as much of a case as possible so that they can get to the point where once you’re caught, you’re caught. The problem with criminal tax cases in particular is the conduct may be several years old. I mean, you know, we’re in 2020 right now, we could be dealing with charges that stem from 2013 or 2014. I mean, these charges are old, but these cases take a long time to develop. And when they sit there and they marinate, then you get to the point where they know that they’ve got you because they’ve interviewed all the witnesses in the case, they have gathered all the evidence in the case, and they’re basically ready to convict you long before you step into a courtroom.
So they’re multi-year processes, they take a long time, and they usually end up with CI trying to get the results thereafter unless somebody steps in and stops.