Not that I'm a fan of the IRS, for goodness sake, but it seems to me they'd be able to get some tax evasion convictions against these guys pretty quickly. Those charges of looting companies are likely to drag on for years. It seems to me the "forgiven loans" are a either gifts or income, so if the people involved didn't pay income taxes on that money, then they evaded taxes. That sounds like as solid a slam-dunk as you can get with the convoluted monstrocity of a tax code that we have.

As for the IRS investigators, for the past several years, those claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit have been more likely to get audited than the top earners, but then, the EITC is one of the more fraud-ridden parts of the tax code. Home office deductions probably affect those in the upper income brackets where the revenue losses are greatest. God, I wish we had a flat tax to get rid of this mess!