Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today made the following comment on the Internal Revenue Service’s annual whistleblower report to Congress about agency progress in implementing and using new incentives for whistleblowers to come forward on tax fraud. Grassley authored the 2006 whistleblower improvements.
“The good news is the IRS continues to get whistleblower tips and is making some pay-outs. I’m glad to see that, and I appreciate the IRS’ work to make the program a success. The bad news is the progress in making pay-outs is slow. The agency should do everything it can to make these cases a priority. My worry is that the slow progress will cause the tips to dry up. That would harm the whistleblowers who stick their necks out to flag tax cheating and the honest taxpayers who pay what they owe and deserve tax fairness. It can take awhile, and too long, for an agency to accept a whistleblower program. It happened with the Justice Department when the qui tam amendments were enacted in the 1980s. So supporters of whistleblowers need to stand firm. We can’t let up. The qui tam amendments have recovered more than $40 billion that otherwise would be lost to fraud. The potential for major tax fraud recovery is just as strong with the IRS whistleblower program.”
The IRS’ annual report to Congress on whistleblowers is available here.
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