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IRS Hard Pressed to Shoulder BSA Examination Duties
By Matt Squire
printThe Internal Revenue Service is understaffed and unable to effectively conduct Bank Secrecy Act examinations on the thousands of non-bank financial companies for which it has oversight responsibility, according to compliance professionals. The agency will be particularly hard pressed to begin the examinations of jewelers and dealers in precious metals and stones scheduled to begin next year. The IRS currently has 342 Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) examiners on staff, according to data provided by the agency, down from 367 examiners in September 2007. The IRS said it plans to conduct two hiring waves of new agents in June and September...
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The Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations division for the second straight year began fewer investigations and sought a smaller number of prosecutions for money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes, the agency said Thursday.
The division of investigatory and enforcement powers between two U.S. Treasury Department agencies has resulted in few monetary penalties for anti-money laundering compliance lapses by money services businesses and tension between the two agencies, say current and former government officials.
The Internal Revenue Service has achieved mixed results in its efforts to root out potential unregistered money services businesses, with over a third of all cases leading to dead ends, according to a government report.
John Imhoff, the deputy chief of the IRS criminal investigations unit, speaks about the divisions efforts to investigate tax and money laundering-related narcotics cases and its struggles to get the most out of its resources.
The agency is not checking names against a comprehensive terrorist watch list, and is slowed by a manual review process, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have created a working group to examine an IRS criminal investigation division practice of sending letters to bank customers identified in suspicious activity reports.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) named Eileen Mayer, a former federal prosecutor who has extensive experience with Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) issues, to lead its main investigative arm.
The IRS will use these first exams, which target 14 insurers of various sizes, to gather information and fine-tune procedures for future audits.
Jewelry dealers left an AML seminar last week in New York with unanswered questions about their Bank Secrecy Act responsibilities. The IRS representative who led the session said she couldn't give certain answers in part because she doesn't yet know the particulars of the industry.
More coordination between the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is needed in combating money laundering among non-bank financial institutions, according to a report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Dec. 15.