What Are the Risks of an IRS Criminal Investigation? Well the most obvious one is Jail the US Attorney's Office have a 90 percent conviction rate when it comes to criminal tax cases in most cases this is because they have your tax return as. The evidence that you commit that you did something wrong and they've kind of got you dead to rights criminal investigation unit is building evidence and support that you're a bad person that you did something wrong and so they're really seeking to put you in jail and they're doing that to send a message to other people who may be thinking about committing tax crimes or who are committing tax crimes as do not mess with the United States government. The other consequences and arrests are ones that you may not think of number one criminal investigations are very public matters once you get indicted there's a certain amount of press coverage that comes with it the US Attorney's Office issues a press release oftentimes it involves the liquidation of your assets they take your retirement accounts they take your homes they take all sorts of things in order to satisfy the restitution amounts that often get served in these cases the fallout of these cases often involve families many families don't survive criminal tax cases many marriages don't survive criminal tax cases many spouses go through a very very hard time during these investigations and a lot of the time we know what our role as attorneys is it's not just about dealing with the defendant in the case or who's being charged it's about providing support for the families for the wives the children. The husbands and anybody else who's involved in these types of cases so the fallout in these cases is not just with the individual but it ripples through their personal relationships it ripples through their business relationships and even in cases where there's innocence or a quill the lasting effects of an IRS Criminal Investigation can scar a tax payer for life in a lot of cases and I don't say this to be overdramatic I say this because I've watched my clients go through this before and that's why I believe so vigorously and if their rights against the government so it's really important when you're dealing with a criminal investigation even if you know for sure that you haven't done anything wrong that you take steps and take the appropriate actions to protect yourself to protect your family and protect your livelihood going forward.