UBS $104 Million Whistleblower Warming to New Hampshire Life

According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, the whistleblower in the landmark case involving the Swiss Bank UBS is loving his new life in New Hampshire after he recently pocketed $104 million minus taxes as his reward under law for revealing tax fraud through foreign bank accounts. Bradley Birkenfeld, who himself spent some time in federal prison is currently confined to an estate where his attorney says he does gardening and other odd jobs. He revealed the names of scores of Americans who used Swiss accounts to try to evade paying their taxes here. Birkenfeld was jailed after the government said he had withheld key information and in 2008 he pleaded guilty to one county of conspiracy to defraud the United States and received a 40 month sentence. He was released in August, at first to a halfway house in New Hampshire and then to home confinement. The son of a Boston brain surgeon, Birkenfeld started his banking career at State Street before moving on to Credit Suisse, Barclays and UBS. The $104 million reward is the single largest bounty paid by the IRS to any whistleblower and is expected to result in whistleblowers coming forward with more information concerning major tax evasion. The IRS whistleblower law requires that there be more than $2 million in losses to the government for there to be a claim.