ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Taxpayer First Act Helps Whistleblowers
New Privacy Safeguards, Quicker Response Time, and Protections Against Retaliation
Individuals who blow the whistle on tax fraud through the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Whistleblower Program benefitted from recent improvements in the IRS whistleblower rules and procedures. The Taxpayer First Act (TFA), enacted this year, enhances whistleblower privacy safeguards and extends anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers who come forward with original information of tax avoidance schemes including offshore tax avoidance, abusive tax shelters, accounting fraud, and more. The IRS rewards those whistleblowers when the government recovers unpaid tax. If you have information regarding tax fraud, including offshore tax avoidance schemes and violations of foreign bank account reporting requirements, the California and San Francisco whistleblower/qui tam attorneys at Evans Law Firm, Inc. know how to present your evidence to the IRS with the best chance for you to receive an eventual reward. Call the IRS whistleblower/qui tam attorneys at Evans Law Firm, Inc. (415)441-8669, and we can help.
First, the TFA improves the IRS whistleblower program by requiring the IRS to communicate much faster with whistleblowers during the processing of their claims. Section 1405(a)(1) requires the IRS Whistleblower office to provide the following status updates to a whistleblower or the whistleblower’s attorney:
- Within 60 days after a case for which the whistleblower has provided information has been referred for an audit or examination, the IRS will inform the whistleblower of that referral.
- Within 60 days of a taxpayer making a payment of tax due to the whistleblower’s disclosure, the IRS will provide notice of such payment to the whistleblower.
Second, the TFA extends greater protection against employer retaliation. The TFA prohibits any “employer, officer, employee, contractor, subcontractor, or agent” of an employer from retaliating against a whistleblower. If a whistleblower has been retaliated against for blowing the whistle on tax fraud, he or she may now file a complaint with the Secretary of Labor, and if after 180 days the Secretary has not issued a decision the whistleblower may go to the district court. The remedies for the whistleblower include compensatory damages of reinstatement, and 200 percent of back pay and all lost benefits, with interest and compensation for other special damages including litigation costs, expert witness fees, and reasonable attorney fees. Our attorneys can represent you against employers who retaliate against you for blowing the whistle on fraud in addition to representing you in your underlying IRS whistleblower application.
Contact Us
If you have information regarding offshore tax avoidance schemes, violations of foreign bank account reporting requirements, abusive tax shelters, or other tax fraud contact Ingrid M. Evans and the other IRS whistleblower and tax fraud attorneys at the Evans Law Firm at (415) 441-8669, or by email at <a href=”mailto:info@evanslaw.com”>info@evanslaw.com</a>. Our whistleblower attorneys also handle cases involving bank fraud under FIRREA/FIAFEA, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission Whistleblower Program, the Securities and Exchange Commission Whistleblower Program, False Claims Act cases, the FINRA Whistleblower Office and the California False Claims Act. We can help guide your case through a jury trial or toward an equitable settlement. We also handle cases involving physical and financial elder abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.
