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IRS Criminal Investigation – How Long Does It Take?
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The most honest answer nobody gives you is this: it takes as long as they want it to take. That’s the reality of an IRS Criminal Investigation. There is no timer. There is no deadline they have to meet. There is no rule that says they have to make a decision within any particular timeframe. While you’re sitting at home checking your mailbox every day, losing sleep, wondering if today is the day Special Agents show up at your door – they’re methodically building a case against you, and they have all the time in the world.
Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to explain how IRS criminal investigation timelines actually work – not the sanitized version, but the reality of what happens when you become a target. Todd Spodek has represented clients who spent two years waiting for resolution, not knowing whether they would be indicted or whether the investigation would be dropped. That uncertainty is part of the punishment. Understanding the process won’t make the waiting easier, but it might help you understand why it takes so long and what’s happening during the silence.
If you’re currently under investigation – or if you suspect you might be – call us at 212-300-5196. The waiting is hard enough. Waiting without representation is dangerous.
The Luxury of Time – Why Your Investigation Moves Slowly
Heres something most people dont understand about IRS criminal investigations. When a Revenue Agent audits your taxes, there under pressure to close the case quickly. There are productivity metrics. There are case quotas. The IRS civil side wants audits finished so they can collect money.
Special Agents have no such pressure.
Criminal Investigation operates on a completly different timeline. Unlike Revenue Agents who are rushed to close cases, Special Agents have what the IRS itself describes as “the luxury of time.” There job isnt to close cases quickly – its to build prosecutable cases. And prosecutable means winning. With a 90% conviction rate to protect, they dont bring cases they might lose. They take as long as necessary to make sure theyll win.
That “luxury of time” is paid for with your anxiety.
The typical IRS criminal investigation takes 12 to 24 months to complete. Thats one to two years of your life in limbo. But heres the number that should really terrify you: the IRS devotes 1,000 to 2,000 staff hours to each criminal case. That means somewhere between six and twelve full-time months of someones career is dedicated to building a case against you.
Think about what that means. While your trying to live your life, go to work, maintain relationships – theres a federal agent whose entire job is to find evidence that will send you to prison. Every day. For months. Sometimes years.
And heres what makes this even harder: you cant check on the status. You cant call and ask “how much longer?” You cant hire an attorney to speed things up. The investigation moves at whatever pace the Special Agent decides, and your just along for the ride.
Some investigations get completed in six months. Some take three years. The difference often has nothing to do with the complexity of your case – it can depend on the agent’s caseload, whether other priorities came up, how cooperative witnesses were, and dozens of other factors completly outside your control.
The Five Stages of an IRS Criminal Investigation
Your case dosent just appear out of nowhere and land on a prosecutors desk. It goes through five distinct stages, each of which adds time to the overall investigation. Understanding these stages helps explain why everything takes so long.
Stage One: Primary Investigation
This is were everything starts. A Special Agent recieves information suggesting possible criminal tax fraud. Maybe it came from a civil auditor who noticed something suspicious. Maybe it came from a whistleblower. Maybe it came from another law enforcement agency. Whatever the source, the agent analyzes the information to determine if theres enough to justify further investigation.
This stage can last weeks or months, and you probly wont know its happening.
Stage Two: Supervisor Review
If the Special Agent believes theres potential criminal activity, they present there findings to there front-line supervisor. The supervisor reviews everything and decides wheather to approve further development. If approved, the request goes up to the Special Agent in Charge of the local office.
At this point, at least two layers of CI management have reviewed your case and determined theres sufficient evidence to investigate you criminally. Still, you probly have no idea.
Stage Three: Subject Criminal Investigation
Now your officialy a subject of a criminal investigation. The Special Agent has formal authorization to investigate you. They can issue summonses. They can subpoena records. They can interview witnesses. They can do surveillance. Everything they do is documented and will eventually appear in a report.
This stage can last anywhere from six months to two years.
Stage Four: Evidence Gathering and Analysis
The Special Agent gathers every piece of evidence they can find. Bank records. Financial statements. Tax returns. Emails. Text messages. Interviews with your accountant, your business partners, your employees, your ex-spouse. Anyone who might have relevant information becomes a potential witness.
During this phase, the agent also consults with legal counsel – both the IRS Chief Counsel for Criminal Tax and the Assistant US Attorney who would potentialy prosecute the case. There making sure the evidence will hold up in court.
Identifying and tracking down witnesses is one of the most time-consuming aspects of the investigation. If your under investigation for multiple years of tax issues, agents will go back as far as they can into your records. They want to establish a pattern.
Stage Five: Special Agent Report and Prosecution Referral
Once the investigation is complete, the Special Agent prepares what’s called a “Special Agent Report.” This document summarizes everything: the evidence, the analysis, the legal theory, the recommended charges.
But the report dosent go straight to the prosecutor. It goes through multiple levels of review. The agent’s supervisor reviews it. A criminal investigation quality review team examines it. The Special Agent in Charge evaluates it. Each reviewer can decline to move forward if they dont think the evidence is strong enough.
Only if every level approves does the case get referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
Each of these stages adds weeks or months to your wait. And at any stage, the investigation can be discontinued – which sounds like good news until you realize they never have to tell you it was discontinued. Some people spend years worrying about an investigation that was actualy closed months ago. Others assume its over when the Special Agent is quietly building the final report.
The Department of Justice adds another layer. Even after CI recommends prosecution, the US Attorney has to agree to take the case. Sometimes they decline. Sometimes they request additional investigation. Sometimes they sit on it for months before making a decision. None of this is visible to you.
Why Silence Is the Most Dangerous Sign
Heres were people make a critical mistake. They assume that if there not hearing anything, the investigation must have gone away.
Thats almost never true.
The IRS has no obligation to tell you your under criminal investigation. If you ask a Special Agent directly wheather your being investigated, they dont have to answer. The only rule is they cant affirmativly deceive you – they cant say “no, your not under investigation” when you are. But they can stay silent. They can deflect. They can say “I cant discuss that.”
Silence from the IRS Criminal Investigation division is not good news. Its the sound of them working.
Todd Spodek has seen this pattern repeatedly. A client comes in after months of hearing nothing. They’ve started to relax. They’ve convinced themselves it must be over. Then, month 14 or month 18, Special Agents appear unannounced. The investigation wasnt dormant – it was building. The silence was the sound of evidence being gathered, witnesses being interviewed, reports being drafted.
The longest investigations are often the most dangerous ones. If they’re taking two years instead of one, its not becuase their having trouble building a case. Its becuase the case is complex enough that they want to be absolutly certain before they move forward.
The psychological impact of this waiting period is severe. Weve seen clients develop anxiety disorders, struggle with insomnia, damage relationships with family members who dont understand what there going through. The uncertainty is a form of punishment that happens before any charges are ever filed – and it happens wheather your ultimately indicted or not.
At Spodek Law Group, part of what we do during this period is help clients manage the waiting. We can sometimes get information about the status of an investigation through appropriate channels. We can help clients understand what the silence might mean. And we can begin building a defense strategy so that when something does happen, were ready.
The 12-24 Month Reality
When people ask how long an IRS criminal investigation takes, they usualy want a specific number. Heres the closest thing to an answer: most investigations take 12 to 24 months from the time they become a “subject criminal investigation” to the time a prosecution recommendation is made.
But thats not the full timeline.
Before you become a subject, theres the primary investigation phase. That can add weeks or months. After the prosecution recommendation, theres the DOJ review. That can add more months. If charges are filed, theres the pretrial period, which can take six months to a year. If you go to trial, add more time.
From start to finish – from the first suspicion to final resolution – you could easily be looking at three to four years of your life consumed by this process.
And heres the uncomfortable reality: you have zero control over any of it. You cant speed up the investigation. You cant make them decide faster. You cant force resolution. All you can do is wait.
The only thing you CAN control is how you respond. Do you make statements that give them more evidence? Do you destroy documents and add obstruction charges? Do you cooperate in ways that hurt you or in ways that might help? These decisions – made during the waiting period – can dramatically affect the outcome.
How the Statute of Limitations Actually Works
Many people ask about the statute of limitations, hoping it provides some kind of deadline. It does, but not in the way most people expect.
For most tax crimes, the statute of limitations is six years. This means the government generaly has six years from the date the tax return was filed – or from the due date if no return was filed – to bring criminal charges.
But heres what most people dont realize: the statute can be reset.
If you make a false statement to an IRS agent in Year 5 of the investigation, you just restarted the clock. Now they have six more years from that date. One conversation can extend your criminal exposure by half a decade.
And theres more. The statute of limitations is “tolled” – meaning paused – during any period when your outside the United States. If you think fleeing the country will run out the clock, your wrong. Every day your abroad, the statute stops running. Come back after two years, and they still have the full remaining time plus whatever tolled.
The IRS also rarely goes back more than six years for practical reasons – older cases are harder to prove. But they absolutely can and will go further if the evidence is strong enough. And for civil tax fraud, theres no statute of limitations at all. They can pursue civil penalties for returns from a decade ago.
Heres another timing trap most people dont know about. If your being investigated for multiple years of tax fraud, each year has its own statute of limitations. The 2018 return might be close to expiring, but the 2022 return has years to go. The government can charge you on whatever years are still within the statute, even if older years have expired.
And remember: while the criminal statute might expire, the civil statute for fraud never does. Even if they cant put you in prison for returns from 2015, they can still pursue civil fraud penalties and collect every dollar they claim you owe. Winning on the criminal timeline dosent mean winning overall.
What Happens at Each Review Level
Heres something that should concern you about the timeline. By the time your case reaches a prosecutor, its already been approved by multiple levels of experienced investigators who all agreed the evidence supports criminal charges.
The Special Agent believed the case was worth pursuing. There supervisor agreed. The quality review team concurred. The Special Agent in Charge approved. Every single one of these experienced professionals looked at the evidence against you and decided it was strong enough to potentially destroy your life.
Only about 0.3% of potential cases become criminal prosecutions. That sounds reassuring until you realize what it means. The filtering is brutal. Most cases get declined somewhere along the way. But the cases that survive – the ones that make it through all five stages of review – face a 90% conviction rate.
At Spodek Law Group, we tell clients this uncomfortable truth: if your case has made it to prosecution, the government believes they have what they need to convict you. Your job isnt to assume theyre wrong. Its to find the weaknesses they missed and exploit them.
But heres the other side of that reality. Many cases get discontinued at some stage of review. Maybe the evidence wasnt as strong as the Special Agent thought. Maybe the tax loss was too small to justify the resources. Maybe a key witness became unavailable or uncooperative. Cases fall apart for all kinds of reasons.
The problem is you dont know which category your in. Your case might be on the verge of being discontinued, and youd never know it. Or it might be one review away from prosecution. This uncertainty – this complete lack of visibility into your own fate – is one of the cruelest aspects of the criminal investigation process.
What You Cannot Control – And What You Can
Lets be clear about what you cannot control during an IRS criminal investigation:
- You cannot control the timeline. They will take as long as they want.
- You cannot control wheather they investigate. That decision was made before you knew anything was happening.
- You cannot control how much evidence they gather. They will get what they get.
- You cannot control wheather they recommend prosecution. That decision happens in rooms you’ll never see.
But heres what you CAN control:
You can control what you say. Every statement you make can be used against you. Invoke your right to remain silent. Let your attorney speak for you.
You can control what you dont destroy. Destroying evidence adds obstruction charges. Leave everything exactly where it is.
You can control wheather you have representation. A criminal tax attorney can communicate with investigators, understand what stage your case is in, and begin building your defense while the investigation is still underway.
You can control your response to any plea offers that come later. Having an attorney early means you’ll be prepared to evaluate options when they arise.
You can also control how you document things now. Keep records of what you provided to your accountant. Preserve any communications that show your good faith. These records might become critical evidence later – and you want to preserve them before memories fade and documents get lost.
The waiting period isnt just dead time. Its preparation time. Use it wisely.
Spodek Law Group is located in the Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway in Manhattan. We handle federal criminal tax investigations nationwide. If you suspect your under investigation, or if you know you are and your waiting for resolution, call us at 212-300-5196. The waiting may be unavoidable. Waiting alone is not.
Todd Spodek has guided clients through investigations that lasted months and investigations that lasted years. Some of those clients were never charged. Some negotiated favorable resolutions. Some went to trial and won. The common thread was representation that started early – before critical mistakes could be made during the waiting period.
Dont let the timeline control you. The investigation takes as long as it takes. But what you do during that time – the decisions you make, the evidence you preserve, the statements you avoid – determines everything else. The waiting is unavoidable. Making it count is your choice.