IRS Looking To Pay Heavy Rewards to Whistleblowers To Encourage Disclosures

The IRS has enhanced its whistleblower reward program and wants to pay out billions in rewards in order to encourage disclosure of known tax evaders, according to the new Firector of the IRS Whistleblower Office. In one case, the IRS collected $3.4 billion in underpaid taxes from GlaxoSmithKline which had evaded taxed through inter-company transactions to foreign affiliates concerning patents and trademarks on certain drugs. This is considered offshore tax fraud. Merck, another large pharma company paid the IRS $2.3 billion for tax evasion and it too had shifted profits offshore by transferring ownership of of two drug patents for Zocor and Mevacor to a shell company it had formed in Bermuda. Under the new IRS program, the whistleblower gets between 15 and 30% of what the IRS recovers and in these cases, this would have meant that the reward to the whistleblower would have been $1 billion in one case and $650 in the other. Many companies are doing the same kind of offshore fraud schemes but the details are not known to the government and will only be revealed by company insiders willing to come forward. This is not just limited to drug companies but also high tech companies and other major corporations. Now, the IRS is openly asking for help and enhancing rewards as well as streamlining the process to report. If you are aware of any tax fraud, contact attorney Jeff Newman.