Recent Statistics on Tax Convictions

Posted by: John DeLancett
April 06, 2009
Topic: Legal News

Recent Statistics on Tax Convictions

A recent article generated by Trac Reports Inc. in its "Tax Notes" dated April 7, 2008 reports on a number of interesting statistics about criminal tax convictions in 2007 and previous years. In 2007, 1,081 individuals were convicted of tax crimes. This was a 6.3% increase over the previous year, but the article reports that convictions were down almost 36% from those reported in 1997. Apparently, charges under Internal Revenue Code §7206, dealing with fraud and false statements was the most frequently "lead charge" as it had been a year ago and five years ago. The second most frequent "lead charge" was the attempt to evade or defeat tax under IRC §7201. Third was money laundering, which is actually a title 18, as opposed to a title 26 charge. (Title 18 is where most federal crimes are found and Title 26 is the tax title of the United States Code).

Most of the cases emanated from white collar crime, which accounted for 70.1% of the convictions. Second, was narcotics and drugs, and then, third was a category designated as "other". These statistics according to the article and the Department of Justice represent 3.7 convictions for every 1 million people. Interesting, it didn't say what the percentage was among taxpayers. The district with the most convictions in 2007, through September of that year was the District of Colombia. The District of Nevada came in second. The Northern District of Illinois, which contains the city of Chicago, came in third. Over the past 20 years, the districts with the highest rankings include Nevada, Hawaii, Southern Alabama, and Northern Oklahoma.

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