The IRS is basically asking accountants to be SWAT. An accountant is far more dangerous when sitting behind a desk piled high with stacks of paper than SWAT with a no-knock warrant can ever be to someone who doesn't get the books right.
The FBI couldn't nail Al Capone for his illegal activities. The IRS did because his tax returns did not include the "other income" he got from his illegal activities.
You don't have to say where the money came from. You just have to report it and "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's".
Ive said this before this is a completely different skillset.
What the tax man does is very different from what a police officer does, if you try to train in both you end up less competant in both. This is basically asking for lots of dead innocent people.
Speaking as someone who deals with fraud and financial crime on a daily basis, I call bullshit.
But also that there are a few *massive* misunderstandings and misconceptions over the past few pages of this thread regarding the IRS, and specifically IRS-CI. I'll cover those first, and then get into a bit of a summary as to why an in-depth understanding of financial crime is actually crucial for any criminal investigator, whether local, state, or federal.
1) The photos of "new IRS hires" which are actually not. They're a group of 24 college students who got to do a day-long project with agents from CI's Newark office...in 2017.
The IRS Criminal Investigation Newark Field Office brought the Adrian Project to Stockton’s Campus Center for a day-long simulation of a mock criminal investigation.
stockton.edu
2) Following on that, there are two main types of "IRS agents": Revenue Agents and IRS Special Agents.
Revenue Agents are civilian employees who do audits and other tax stuff. They're the ones most people think of, but it's important to note that, despite having "Agent" in their title, they are not law enforcement officials (that is, they don't do criminal investigations). Audits and tax investigations are not treated as automatic criminal cases. Now, if they *do* come across stuff that moves it from "some irregularities but nothing serious" to "actual evidence of criminal misconduct", then such a case gets punted to:
The IRS' Criminal Investigations Division, more popularly known as IRS-CI. These guys (and girls) *are* sworn LEOs, classified as 1811s (Criminal Investigators, same as the FBI, ICE-HSI, DEA, USSS, NCIS, etc). They go through training down at FLETC (both basic and IRS specific).
They've been around for more than a century and are the ones who actually nailed Capone. They handle criminal tax cases, sure, but also deal with non-tax fraud, money laundering & terrorist financing, and so forth. It's why you see certain cases involving "FBI and IRS agents" -though that's mainly CI doing the technical stuff and the FBI is just there to provide extra hands and also take the credit (partially joking here). In any case, CI agents are recognized as the foremost authorities in federal law enforcement on financial crime (ICE-HSI is also big in this, but they also have a much wider brief and competing priorities). CI agents serve on task forces around the country -and there are a handful at embassies and consulates overseas as well- because of just how proficient they are at following the money.
Anyway...this whole fuss about "armed IRS agents" is overblown because some idiot on the Internet saw it and either didn't know that it pertains to a very small subset of the IRS as a whole or else did but figured they could gin up some misplaced outrage. Notably, I knew off the bat the tweet a few pages back was bullshit -CI agents have to be physically able to do the job, same as any other cop, so anyone in a wheelchair is disqualified. And federal agents, as a rule, are generally in their late 20s at least, since the feds tend to prefer people with prior experience as opposed to hiring kids right out of college. (And I also knew it from the horseplay in one of the photos with the "red guns" as they're called -that is an absolute no-no at FLETC and can get you thrown out).
Anyway...as to financial crimes and cops. What, exactly, is the point of engaging in a criminal enterprise? Why, it's to make money. What's one of the most effective ways to nail down how said enterprise works from the outside? Follow said money. And when you can follow the money, you can figure out how to cut it off and shut the bad guys down.
There is a growing emphasis in law enforcement (actually it's been there for quite some time and now is encompassing cyber crimes as well) on financial/accounting experience to be able to track and shut down illicit flows of money. Cut it off? Can't buy drugs or guns. Can't finance WMD programs. Can't finance terrorist attacks. Can't bribe officials. Can't do all sorts of things.
And that's the sort of stuff CI is actually focused on. The 87,000? I expect most of them to be revenue agents rather than CI hires -the latter have announcements every year and get a LOT of applicants that they have to screen through and can be picky. But CI also doesn't get involved in minor stuff -they focus on actual criminal activity, not someone who made a couple of mistakes on a tax form.