IRS Announces First Whistleblower Award Since Program Began in 2006

As a New Jersey Whistleblower Attorney I am truly amazing how long whistleblower cases can take! This is best exemplified by the recent IRS announcement of their FIRST award. The time lapse is interesting because the IRS established a whistleblower office in 2006. Nearly five years later, the IRS announces its first award to a whistleblower.

The facts are fairly interesting in that the whistleblower was actually an accountant. The accountant reported the underpayment of in excess of $20 million in taxes and interests from a financial services firm. At the time of the report, the accountant was working for the company he reported.

The “new” IRS program announced in 2006 was designed to encourage tips in larger cases and the awards to the person supplying the information can vary between 15% and 30% of the amount of money recovered by the IRS. The IRS awarded the whistleblower 22% of the taxes recovered.

One of the fascinating aspects of the IRS whistleblower provisions is the possibility of remaining anonymous. Any report of the information is pursued by the IRS and, if the whistleblower so chooses, the name will not be released. This is somewhat attractive to some whistleblowers, who remain in the employ of the entity they are reporting on.

In an interesting piece of irony, the IRS mailed the award check to the whistleblower by first class mail. As if the use of first class mail was not ironic enough in this day and age, the check sent to the whistleblower was in the amount of $3.24 million. The difference between the $4.5 million awarded and the $3.24 million sent was a 28% tax!

The interesting aspect of this recent award is that almost every “fraud” against the government has some “tax fraud” aspect. If there is any underpayment to the government of monies owed and these monies are not reported as income, this can certainly qualify as a “tax fraud.”

The recent announcement of the first award from the IRS and its significant size may prompt others to consider this alternative instead of a more “traditional” whistleblower-type lawsuit.

Also interesting is the fact that the individual whistleblower attempted to pursue the matter himself and the matter languished. After the whistleblower hired an attorney, the matter seemed to move along.

The IRS whistleblower office submits an annual report to congress. The annual report indicates that the IRS whistleblower office receives nearly 1,000 tips per year. The tips received by the office often allege tax underpayments of more than $10 million, and there are some instances of reported underpayments of in excess of $100 million. Needless to say, this will be an interesting subset of whistleblower representation. Knowing the limitations of the whistleblower office, the program is only “accepting” reports of fraud in excess of $2 million.