Archive

A Tale of Two Whistleblower Offices -- The Very Different Approaches of the SEC and IRS

By Gordon Schnell By now, we all have heard about the $104 million awarded to former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld for blowing the whistle on the Swiss banking giant's scheme to help thousands of Americans use offshore accounts to cheat the IRS.  See The IRS Whistleblower Office Gets Serious With Record Setting Award.  It was the largest whistleblower award on record and particularly notable as it came from an...

The IRS Whistleblower Office Gets Serious With Record Setting Award

By Gordon Schnell In a shot heard round the whistleblower world, the IRS has paid $104 million to former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld for blowing the whistle on the Swiss banking giant's scheme to help thousand of Americans cheat the IRS through secreting their assets in offshore accounts.  This is the scandal that led to the bank's payment of a $780 million fine and to the voluntary disclosure by more than...

The IRS Whistleblower Office -- A New Beginning or Just a Lot of Lip Service

By Gordon Schnell Since its inception in 2007, the IRS Whistleblower Office has been subject to some fairly withering attacks.  And for good reason.  It was supposed to revamp the IRS whistleblower system, encouraging tipsters to flood in and help the government identify all of those tax cheats and their billions of dollars in unpaid taxes each year.  The whistleblowers have certainly done their part.  They...