# IRS: Historical Documents relating to Alphonse (Al) Capone, Chicago

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/irs-capone-historical-documents/

The Internal Revenue Service's Freedom of Information Act page publishing five documents from the Intelligence Unit's investigation of Alphonse Capone, released because he never filed a tax return.

An IRS Freedom of Information Act page, marked "Notice: Historical Content." The date given here is the page's "Last Reviewed or Updated" date, 28 June 2026; the documents it publishes date from 1931 to 1936.

The page explains that federal tax records are confidential by law, and that a review under Internal Revenue Code § 6103 found these could be released, "principally because Capone never filed a tax return." It links five PDF files: the revenue agents' report of July 8, 1931; Special Agent Frank J. Wilson's summary report of December 21, 1933; Wilson's letters of March 27 and April 8, 1931, to the Chief of the Intelligence Unit; and an excerpt from the Intelligence Unit's narrative of 1919 to 1936, which the page says Elmer Irey prepared for Commissioner Guy T. Helvering. Each has its own page here.

The page also says Capone "served 11 years in prison." That is the length of the 1931 sentence, not the time he served, and this archive does not repeat it as fact. The page is an agency's introduction to the records, not a record itself.

## Sources

- Internal Revenue Service: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/historical-documents-relating-to-alphonse-al-capone-chicago