Danger is lurking in the world of Internal Revenue Service audits, namely, parallel investigations. Parallel investigations by the IRS are simultaneous civil and criminal investigations of an individual or business entity, which means that taxpayers can be under investigation for criminal tax matters at the same time a civil audit is being conducted.
A parallel investigation is not a joint, but rather two separate, yet simultaneous investigations being conducted by the criminal investigation and civil examination divisions of the IRS. Although the two divisions may coordinate, they do not direct each other’s actions during the investigation.
