Better Use of Currency and Foreign Account Reports by Treasury and IRS Needed for Law Enforcement Purposes

Currency reports, foreign trust returns, and foreign bank account reports have not been as useful to the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in carrying out their investigative responsibilities, as Congress might have expected when it established the reporting requirements.

Currency reports might be more useful if their processing were centralized in the Treasury Department's law enforcement data system and the Internal Revenue Service made more effective use of that system. Foreign trust returns might be more valuable if the Internal Revenue Service established better criteria for ensuring compliance with filing requirements and for evaluating reported information. The Treasury Department needs to follow up its effotrs to improve the value of foreign bank account data.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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