Copy the URL that ranks, then load it
Search your full name in quotes, then your name plus the case caption, and copy the irs.gov link exactly as it appears in the result. Paste it into the browser bar and load it. You're checking one thing: whether the page is still there. A deleted release serves the IRS error page, which reads Page Not Found. Error 404. Sorry, this page is not available. A live release opens with a date line and the story.
The cutoff moves, so check it rather than trusting anyone's number. The Criminal Investigation press releases index groups its months under Prior year news, and as of September 2026 the oldest month listed is August 2021. Earlier month URLs return 404. The IRS publishes no retention policy for these pages, so treat it as an observed boundary of roughly five years, not a rule you can cite at anyone.
Write down every copy while you're here, more than the irs.gov one. The same paragraphs usually sit on the U.S. Attorney's site as well, and de-indexing one page leaves the other ranking on your name. Search the case caption on its own too, because the news write-ups that quoted the release are a third set of URLs and they answer to nobody in this procedure.
If the page 404s, file the Google refresh request
This is the one step with a real form and a real answer. Open Google's Refresh Outdated Content tool, sign in, paste the URL, and click Submit. The tool is built for your exact situation: Google's eligibility line is that you use it if you do not own the web page pointed to by Google. Because the page is actually gone, you won't be asked for any snippet text.
Your request lands in the request queue at the bottom of the tool carrying one of five statuses. Pending means Google is working on it, and in their words processing can take a few days. Approved, Denied, Expired and Cancelled are the rest, and a denial comes with a link explaining why. There is nothing to chase in the meantime, no second address to try, and nobody to call.
Approved is not permanent. Google's doc says a request expires once 180 days have passed since approval, or once the URL no longer exists, so re-search your name after it clears and file again if the result is back. The whole thing is free and takes a few minutes, which means anyone quoting you a fee to de-index a dead IRS page is charging you to fill in one box.
If the page still loads, you're inside the window
There is no removal form and no published removal policy. What there is, printed at the top of every release, is the contact line: Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov. That's the Criminal Investigation press desk and it's the address to use. newsroom@irs.gov belongs to the IRS Media Relations Office, a different desk handling a different set of releases, and a letter sent there is a letter wasted.
Keep the message to three things: the full URL, the docket entry number of the order that ended the matter, and one specific ask. Ask them to block the page from search engines rather than delete it, because that's the smaller request and it's the one that fixes your search results. Their own index page hands you the argument: News items may not be updated after their release. Please verify the date before relying on the language.
Expect no answer. Nothing obligates the press desk to reply, and there's no acknowledgment window, no appeal and no service level anywhere on those pages. Meanwhile every release older than August 2021 has already come off the site on its own, so time is doing more work here than any letter will. Nobody can give you a date for that, and anyone who offers one is guessing.
The U.S. Attorney's copy is a separate desk
Two copies, two requests. The IRS-CI page is usually the district's announcement reprinted, down to the line naming the U.S. Attorney who announced it, so the same ask has to be made twice with the same evidence. Start at Find Your United States Attorney and open the district that charged the case.
Write to the office's designated media contact, not a general inbox. The Justice Manual sets that up: 1-7.200 says each United States Attorney's Office shall designate at least one person to act as a point of contact on matters pertaining to the media, and 1-7.310 says the U.S. Attorney has responsibility for all matters involving the local media. Send the same URL, the same docket entry, the same ask.
That policy contains no takedown provision, so don't let anyone tell you it does. 1-7.000 governs what may be published and who speaks to reporters, and it says nothing about removal, retention or deleting a page. One practical note: justice.gov press pages sit behind a bot check that answers 200 to anything, including a URL that was never real, so a status code pulled by a script proves nothing. Open the page in a browser and look.
A Circular 230 sanction is a different record
If a suspension or disbarment is what's ranking, the look-up matters more than the press release. The Office of Professional Responsibility publishes its disciplinary list as a searchable spreadsheet on Search for disciplined tax professionals, and that file is what a compliance desk actually pulls on you. It covers the last 25 years, which aligns with OPR's record-retention requirement.
That file moves. OPR updates it to reflect reinstatements to practice after the end of a suspension or disbarment, and getting there takes a petition. 31 CFR 10.81 lets a disbarred or suspended practitioner, or a disqualified appraiser, petition for reinstatement five years on, or immediately after the suspension or disqualification period expires if that period is shorter than five years, with the IRS satisfied that you are not likely to engage thereafter in conduct contrary to the regulations in this part and that reinstatement would not be contrary to the public interest.
The Internal Revenue Bulletin announcement that named you is permanent. The IRS calls the Bulletin the authoritative instrument for announcing official rulings and procedures, back issues are archived by number, and nobody edits one. The IRS does say a practitioner's eligibility may have been reinstated since the discipline was published, which is why the look-up is the record worth fixing. Trouble using that file goes to OPR by eFax at 855-814-1722, or by mail to Internal Revenue Service, Office of Professional Responsibility, IR Room 7238, 1111 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20224. It is not a removal channel.
What not to do, and what none of this reaches
Don't file Google's private information form. That route is Remove my private info from Google Search, and it covers home addresses, government ID numbers, bank details and medical records. It also states that if the content is about something important or newsworthy, like the news, Google might not take it down. A federal prosecution release is the definition of that carve-out, so the request comes back denied.
Don't file a FOIA request either. FOIA gets you access to records. It is not a correction or removal channel, and nothing on the IRS FOIA page amends or takes down a published news item. The same discipline applies to the refresh tool once a page is live: Google's instructions say plainly that if the page still exists, and if the information you want removed is still there, this tool is not for you.
Be clear about what none of this touches. De-indexing the irs.gov page changes nothing in the court's docket, nothing in PACER, nothing in the news articles that quoted the release, and nothing on the legal databases that copied the case. Every one of those is its own site with its own policy and its own request, and the IRS page is usually the easiest one on that list.