As stated in the lecture, CI is very thorough in its investigations, and prosecutions are not recommended unless the IRS feels that it has a very strong case. Then DOJ scrutinizes the cases and only takes those likely to result in convictions.

Take a look at these statistics:

Actions	FY 2007	FY 2008	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013	FY 2014	FY 2015	FY 2016
Investigations Initiated
Tax Investigations	2516	2283	2612	2889	2652	2987	3325	2743	2246	1963
Other Financial Crimes	1695	1466	1509	1817	2038	2138	1989	1554	1607	1432
Total	4211	3749	4121	4706	4720	5125	5314	4297	3853	3395
Prosecution Recommendations
Tax Investigations	1430	1297	1278	1507	1610	1790	2422	2031	1729	1442
Other Financial Crimes	1407	1488	1292	1527	1800	1911	1942	1447	1560	1302
Total	2837	2785	2570	3034	3410	3701	4364	3478	3289	2744
Indictments/ Informations
Tax Investigations	1126	1171	1141	1250	1325	1531	2134	1927	1666	1437
Other Financial Crimes	1197	1376	1194	1395	1673	1859	1731	1345	1542	1324
Total	2323	2547	2335	2645	2998	3390	3865	3272	3208	2761
Sentenced
Tax Investigations	1112	1016	1113	1054	1162	1210	1455	1796	1664	1419
Other Financial Crimes	1011	941	1116	1118	1044	1256	1357	1472	1428	1280
Total	2123	1957	2229	2172	2206	2466	2812	3268	3092	2699

Footnotes: Tax Investigations include all violations of the criminal statutes under Title 26, as well as other federal criminal violations whose underlying purpose was circumvention of the Internal Revenue laws. Other financial crimes include all money laundering and currency crimes violations not specified under tax investigations.

Source: Criminal Investigation Management Information System (CIMIS)

During the above years, there were approximately 2500-2600 Special Agents working for the IRS, so staffing is not a variable in play here. While there are some variances, in general most prosecution recommendations result in prosecutions, and then result in indictments. What conclusions can we make from these statistics about how the IRS and DOJ are doing their jobs?