Tax Facts from the IRS

• The IRS closed almost 3.3 million cases under the Automated Underreporter Program, resulting in nearly $6.7 billion in additional assessments.
• The IRS assessed more than $12.5 billion in additional taxes for returns not filed timely and collected more than $1.6 billion with delinquent returns.
•  The IRS assessed $26.5 billion in civil penalties.  More than $11 billion was assessed in civil penalties on individual and estate and trust income tax returns.
•  The IRS filed 446,378 notices of Federal Tax Liens and 590,249 notices of levy requested on third parties (i.e. employers)
•  In 2016, the IRS initiated 3,395 criminal investigations and recommended 2,744 for prosecution.  The conviction rate was 96.7% and of those, 79.9% received prison time.
•  For Tax Year 2016, individual income tax returns processed in 2017, the IRS sent more than 2 million notices to taxpayers for about 2.5 million math errors identified on their returns.

Source:  2017 IRS Data Book