Tax crimes tend to receive less prison time than violent offenses but are more likely to result in probation. They rarely end with fines alone. Overall, tax offenses are treated as less dangerous but still serious, often leading to probation rather than imprisonment or just a fine.
Question: How does the sentencing rate of tax fraud compare to other types of crimes?
Tax crimes receive much shorter sentences than most other crimes, both in average and median length. This highlights that tax offenses are generally treated as less severe than violent or high-risk crimes.
Question: How are tax fraud charges punished compared to other types of crimes?
This page provides an overview of federal tax fraud sentencing patterns in the United States from 2014 to 2024, focusing on both the number of individuals sentenced and the average length of prison sentences. Through interactive line charts, users can observe a notable decline in sentencing rates leading up to 2018, followed by fluctuations in recent years. Similarly, the average sentence length remained stable through 2017 before rising sharply in 2018 and varying slightly thereafter. These visualizations offer insight into how enforcement and sentencing practices have evolved over the past decade.
Questions answered from this data:
How has tax fraud sentencing rates changed overtime?
What is the average length of prison sentences for tax fruad overtime?
This page provides an overview of tax fraud trends by gender and race from 2007 to 2024 by using interactive Highchart plots. The data reveals a significant gender disparity, with male cases consistently outnumbering female cases. Racially, white individuals historically show the highest numbers, though cases among Black and Hispanic individuals have increased in recent years. The number of men sentenced was the largest, reaching 467. Among the races, the number of white people was the largest, reaching 532.Data from United States Sentencing Commision.
Question: How have gender and racial disparities in tax fraud convictions evolved in the United States from 2007 to 2024?
| Year | Male Number | Female number |
|---|---|---|
| 2014-12-31 | 518 | 131 |
| 2015-12-31 | 413 | 148 |
| 2017-12-31 | 316 | 117 |
| 2016-12-31 | 379 | 144 |
| 2018-12-31 | 396 | 181 |
| 2019-12-31 | 377 | 170 |
| 2020-12-31 | 268 | 98 |
| 2021-12-31 | 297 | 124 |
| 2022-12-31 | 369 | 127 |
| 2023-12-31 | 314 | 132 |
| 2024-12-31 | 336 | 104 |
| 2013-12-31 | 461 | 152 |
| 2012-12-31 | 446 | 160 |
| 2011-12-31 | 497 | 178 |
| 2010-12-31 | 532 | 131 |
| 2009-12-31 | 146 | 25 |
| 2008-12-31 | 495 | 88 |
| 2007-12-31 | 516 | 123 |
| Year | White Number | Black Number | Hispanic Number | Other Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-12-31 | 467 | 83 | 37 | 42 |
| 2008-12-31 | 408 | 88 | 36 | 43 |
| 2009-12-31 | 423 | 86 | 44 | 58 |
| 2010-12-31 | 435 | 95 | 72 | 53 |
| 2011-12-31 | 411 | 140 | 72 | 35 |
| 2012-12-31 | 349 | 129 | 68 | 48 |
| 2013-12-31 | 368 | 120 | 58 | 51 |
| 2014-12-31 | 400 | 123 | 64 | 58 |
| 2015-12-31 | 350 | 107 | 67 | 63 |
| 2016-12-31 | 273 | 131 | 75 | 43 |
| 2017-12-31 | 259 | 102 | 66 | 23 |
| 2018-12-31 | 269 | 190 | 38 | 46 |
| 2019-12-31 | 266 | 166 | 125 | 46 |
| 2020-12-31 | 188 | 100 | 40 | 37 |
| 2021-12-31 | 228 | 110 | 84 | 48 |
| 2022-12-31 | 257 | 125 | 73 | 40 |
| 2023-12-31 | 225 | 105 | 72 | 43 |
| 2024-12-31 | 240 | 100 | 50 | 48 |
In 2024, federal tax sentences were most concentrated in high-population states like New York, California, Texas, and Florida. Less populated states, especially in the Midwest and Mountain West, saw few or no cases. The distribution suggests that tax enforcement aligns closely with economic activity and population density.
Question: What states earn the highest number of convictions of tax fraud?
| state | num_tax_sentence |
|---|---|
| Alabama | 4 |
| Alaska | 0 |
| Arizona | 2 |
| Arkansas | 5 |
| California | 34 |
| Colorado | 3 |
| Connecticut | 6 |
| Delaware | 3 |
| District of Columbia | 3 |
| Florida | 41 |
| Georgia | 19 |
| Hawaii | 0 |
| Idaho | 2 |
| Illinois | 13 |
| Indiana | 1 |
| Iowa | 4 |
| Kansas | 5 |
| Kentucky | 1 |
| Louisiana | 4 |
| Maine | 6 |
| Maryland | 13 |
| Massachusetts | 25 |
| Michigan | 8 |
| Minnesota | 8 |
| Mississippi | 9 |
| Missouri | 7 |
| Montana | 2 |
| Nebraska | 1 |
| Nevada | 6 |
| New Hampshire | 0 |
| New Jersey | 14 |
| New Mexico | 5 |
| New York | 47 |
| North Carolina | 7 |
| North Dakota | 1 |
| Ohio | 23 |
| Oklahoma | 5 |
| Oregon | 1 |
| Pennsylvania | 29 |
| Rhode Island | 3 |
| South Carolina | 3 |
| South Dakota | 2 |
| Tennessee | 8 |
| Texas | 31 |
| Utah | 2 |
| Vermont | 0 |
| Virginia | 11 |
| Washington | 3 |
| West Virginia | 3 |
| Wisconsin | 7 |
| Wyoming | 0 |
Information on 2024 Federal Sentencing Statistics
The length of sentence isn’t necessarily correlated by district median income. East Washington and Connecticut had the greatest average sentence. For further analysis, average sentence should take population of districts into account.
Question: What district in the U.S. gets most heavily sentenced?
The longest sentence is held by individuals with Some College education, between the ages of 31-35. Among sentenced individuals who graduated college, the longest sentence is held by the age group 26-30, likely right out of college.
Question: What age group has, on average, the greatest sentence for tax fraud? What is this group’s education?
This page focuses on data from the SOI Tax Stats – Criminal Investigation division, by Status or Disposition from 2010 to 2023. The first chart displays raw counts, showing the total number of IRS CI actions over time. This shows the true volume and scale of enforcement activity to show which years had more investigative or prosecutorial effort. The second chart presents percent-of-year data that compares the proportion of each case disposition within a given year. This shows shifts in the types of actions pursued, such as increases in incarcerations or declines in prosecutions, regardless of overall volume.
Question: How has conviction, incarceration, or prosecution rates from the IRS changed over time?
This dashboard was created using Quarto in RStudio, and the R Language and Environment.
The datasets used to create this dashboard was downloaded from:
Quarterly Sentencing Updates, 2024 Federal Sentence Statistics, Commission Datafiles
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