May 4 (Bloomberg) — Americans seeking reward money are turning in neighbors, clients and employers they suspect of cheating on taxes to the IRS at a rate of nearly eight per day, the director of the agency’s whistleblower program said.
Steve Whitlock, the director, told an audience of about 200 lawyers, investigators and government officials at a Miami Beach conference on offshore banking that his office receives 40 to 50 tips per month alleging tax liability in excess of $2 million. Americans submit another 200 per month alleging smaller violations, he said.
Whitlock said submissions have surged since the enactment in 2006 of a law that requires the Internal Revenue Service to pay awards of between 15 percent and 30 percent in cases where more than $2 million is collected. Prior to the law, both the decision on whether to make an award and the amount of payment were discretionary.
“Right after we got the new law” containing the minimum award, “the fax machine was running the next day,” Whitlock told the Offshore Alert Financial Due Diligence Conference. The rate of submissions is on pace to eclipse the 476 applications filed in 2008, a number that was four times the previous year.
Tired of your neighbor’s dog crapping on your lawn? Turn him in! The burden of proof is his, and who knows…you may end up with some well earned $$$$. Unless of course the person you turn in is a well respected employee of the government.
This is a problem that will take care of itself.
“requires the Internal Revenue Service to pay awards … in cases where more than $2 million is collected.”
Once the current Administration is through with us, hardly anyone is going to be making enough money to be worth the effort.
Forget the IRS. It’s the states and local governments thats out for blood.
I think the 2MM requirement is BS. Should be on any amount.
Related==I think there should be a MANDATORY finder’s fee of 10% for any property returned to its owner. A “thank you” is not enough.
Seems about once a year I read about bags of money popping out of a Brinks Truck that goes over a bump. Should happen any time now.
This is par for the course. Just another example of the government pitting neighbor and against neighbor. People are so idiotic. Don’t they know that if businesses have to pay more taxes, businesses will have to cut jobs? People vote for higher taxes on businesses, then wonder why the economy is in the dumpster.
BMore–I “know” you can’t be this stupid. Stop pimping me.
Taxes need to be enforced, as here, or raised for those people, business included, who don’t pay their allocated share.
Your stupidity evidently knows no bounds. You support closing of public schools (ignorantly thinking the property tax will go away) and tax cheats.
But thats your code==so self centered you support theft and the closing of schools.
Taxes reveal the true patriots from the flag-wrapped fakes.
>> BmoreBadBoy
>> People are so idiotic. Don’t they know that if businesses have to pay more taxes, businesses will have to cut jobs?
Most people know you have to be a total blooming idiot to still believe in supply-side economics after it was thoroughly tried and it drown the country in a sea of red ink without creating any new jobs.
@GregAllen, #7
You’re confusing supply-side economics with trickle-down economics. First of all, I believe the government has no right to tax anyone, so I believe in the FREE MARKET, not supply-side economics, which still allows the government to pick and choose winners, among other things.
It’s really quite simple. Raise taxes and businesses pass those taxes onto the consumer. When the consumer stops buying those products because the price is too high, business cuts the price to move the product. In order for the business to remain viable, it must cut jobs, for it has no other recourse, save a bail out from DC. Businesses cannot retain $12 billion dollar deficits like the federal government can.
@bobbo, #5
The government is the one who is stealing. Example: the mafia “owns” a section of town, and comes to you demanding “protection” money. You pay it at first, because you want no trouble. After a while, you get used to the idea, the mafia doesn’t bother you (except to collect) and nobody else bothers you either, because you are “protected”. One day, the mafia decides to up the price for “protection”. This is a real burden for you now, and you say, hell no! Are you then stealing from the mafia by not paying them for their “Protection services” that they offered to you without your consent in the first place? Please answer my question before denouncing me as an idiot this time. Thanks!
#6. Wow…that comment blows me away. I am struggling to respond. Could you help?
@McCullough, #9
I think he’s talking about Steven Colbert when he refers to the flag-wrapped fakes.
Ha, ha. Hey McCullough—-I didn’t know you had a streak of liebertarianism in you==and yet you chide me so politely for my excessive sarcasm and abuse. Besides the tax is slavery slice of libertarianism, you must also really believe in free speech?===Well Done.
Yeah, imagine appreciating your country enough to pay your allocated portion to keep it going rather than sending other people’s children to die in wars of little consequence.
Patriotism can be defined to include/exclude just about anything you want.
BM-BB–it is easier to write one word: idiot, than the paragraphs you do to communicate the same conclusions. But I’ll go this far given you have a perfect track record of regurgitating your party line rather than answering any direct question: imagine the mafia is not exactly like our government. Only an idiot could fail in that task. Now that your attention is drawn directly to that challenge, I’m sure you can manage it.
Man! Your IRS is DEAD slow.
Here in the UK our Inland Revenue people have just introduced (taking advantage of the election furore) a regulation making it a criminal offence to give advice to any person which causes the tax people to lose tax monies (I’m talking here of LEGITIMATE tax money, which IS covered – but they say they wouldn;t use it in this way. [Of course, I believe them wouldn’t you?])
I would send the reference, but your filters prevent this (try looking at our Daily Mail for the last week or-so). Accountants are NOT excluded, many are sweating coal-blocks thinking of the implications of this.
BMore: “First of all, I believe the government has no right to tax anyone.”
Your belief will not help you when the IRS comes to collect your taxes. The law is on the IRS’s side.
#13–Floyd==given BMores inability/refusal to answer any direct question, I doubt he does or ever will become a tax rebel. He doesn’t really have the stones for confrontation. Instead he enjoys his imaginary status as a Champion of Absolute Libertarianism.
The Army of One: Big A-Hole, No Shit.
@bobbo, #11
How is “imagine the mafia is not exactly like our government” a question? The challenge is having a debate with someone who doesn’t know how to construct a simple question.
@Floyd, #13
Exactly. That’s the definition of extortion. Do what we say, or we’ll come get you. Just because it’s the law doesn’t make it right.
# 13 Floyd:
BMore: “First of all, I believe the government has no right to tax anyone.”
Your belief will not help you when the IRS comes to collect your taxes. The law is on the IRS’s side.
As is ten thousand years of human history.