Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division

David A. Hohn

The Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in 1913, gave Congress the power to levy and collect tax. The Bureau of Internal Revenue, under the Department of the Treasury, was the agency responsible for collecting taxes on individuals and corporations. In 1919 there were widespread accusations of fraudulent tax reporting. Daniel C. Roper, then the commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, was a former first assistant postmaster general; Roper requested the secretary of the treasury and the postmaster general to assign six experienced postal inspectors to the Bureau of Internal Revenue to investigate fraudulent income returns. These inspectors formed a new unit called the Special Intelligence Unit, with Elmer L. Irey as its first chief. In 1952 the Bureau of Internal Revenue reorganized and was renamed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The Special Intelligence Unit went through a series of similar name changes until 1978 when it was ...

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