The Internal Revenue Service has paid a $1.1 million reward to an anonymous whistleblower for information that exposed an alleged tax fraud scheme by Enron, Bankers Trust and others before the company collapsed. Many of these schemes involved use of offshore accounts and entities to avoid US taxation.
It is one of the few whistleblower rewards the new IRS Whistleblower Office has made since Congress created the IRS Whistleblower Office and a new tax whistleblower program in 2006. The IRS made the award under the previous whistleblower program (known as the IRS 211 program), which allowed the IRS to award whistleblowers nothing or up to 15 percent of the tax funds the IRS recovered as a result of the whistleblower’s information.
The whistleblower, a Wall Street banker who has chosen to remain anonymous to protect his job and career, received the maximum reward of 15 percent.
This same program is being used to catch expatriates living and working abroad with unreported foreign income and assets. Your foreign banker, investments advisor, friend, neighbor or accountant can decide it is more profitable to turn you in to the IRS, than to remain loyal to you. Be careful out there!
No comments:
Post a Comment