ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
The Internal Revenue Service recently released their 2014 annual report to Congress on its whistleblower program. Although awards paid by the IRS whistleblower program decreased in 2014, the agency expects to pay out more in 2015.
According to the report, the IRS whistleblower program paid out 101 awards in 2014, totaling $52.3 million. This is slightly down from the previous year, when the program paid $53 million in a total of 122 awards.
The agency anticipates that it will pay out more awards this year under Tax Code Section 7623(b). Although this was created with a 2006 program reorganization, it often takes five to seven years to process claims, according to San Francisco whistleblower attorneys. As a result, only 11 payments have been made under the revised law as of the end of 2014.
Whistleblowers can receive 15 to 30 percent of recovered delinquent taxes under the current program. IRS rules, which were finalized last year, awards whistleblowers on all collected proceeds, factoring in tax attributes such as net operating losses and carryovers. The agency previously had a larger amount of discretion as to whether they would award whistleblowers, and how much, before the program was revamped by Senate Finance Committee member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in the Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006.
Grassley noted that this most recent report shows some progress, although he has often criticized about the slow process. San Francisco whistleblower attorneys note that a seeming lack of urgency in processing awards could lead to fewer whistleblowers speaking out.
Evans Law Firm, Inc. handles whistleblower lawsuits, including IRS whistleblower and SEC whistleblower cases, as well as qui tam/False Claims Act claims. If you have a whistleblower claim, please contact Evans Law Firm, Inc. at 415-441-8669 or via email at info@evanslaw.com.
