Reverse egg shell audits are parallel and simultaneous civil and criminal investigations where essentially a criminal tax investigation is disguised as a civil audit. Reverse eggshell audits usually stem from a referral from a civil examiner (revenue agent) to a Fraud Referral Specialist whose sole job it is to work up the case for a handoff to a special agent in the criminal investigation (CI) division or upon a request by CI that a civil auditor be assigned to an ongoing criminal investigation. Ordinarily in a standard civil audit, the auditor is not on notice at the outset of an audit regarding a taxpayer’s potentially criminal tax conduct, however, in a reverse egg audit; it is the taxpayer and potentially their representative who is not on notice about the auditor’s true intentions.
