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U.S. boosted financial, tax crime probes in 2009
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States boosted its investigation of tax and other financial crimes by about 10 percent last year, tax authorities reported on Thursday, amid an increased push to pursue wealthy tax cheats.
The Internal Revenue Service said it started a total of 4,121 criminal investigations in 2009, compared with 3,749 a year earlier.
The rise comes amid a busy time for U.S. tax prosecutors. Last year, Swiss bank UBS AG agreed to pay $780 million and hand over information for about 4,500 accounts to settle civil and criminal charges against it.
The agency reported a 13 percent rise in the number of probes the government calls "legal source" crimes. This is income from a legal business in which the income was masked or otherwise hidden. Convictions were up slightly for these crimes.
There was also a 13 percent jump among what the government calls illegal-source financial crimes, those funds from sources such as gambling or gun-running, excluding narcotics.
There was a slight drop in initiation of narcotics-related crimes.
The IRS ran a voluntary amnesty program that ended last year that yielded about 15,000 new taxpayers coming clean with the government.
Authorities say they are culling this information to potentially go after other individuals and other financial institutions that may have been helping Americans evade taxes.
(Reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Leslie Adler)
There are so many financial crimes being committed right now that won’t be caught for five years or may never be caught.
Storyburn moctod
Does sending people letters from the ss. department stating they owe ss. money because they were overpaid count?
I know of a lot of people who are getting such letters.
Why is it the reciever’s fault when the gov. errs?
Another scam in which the people have to pay.
People in political or financial power always become corrupt. It must be sociological instinct, and it is contradictory to our instincts as individuals. Therefore, it will always be a dichotomy. The best we can do is periodically redistribute power and wealth.
