According to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is falling short in its handling of its whistleblower program. Whistleblower advocates claim that even further audits are needed to address the issues plaguing the IRS Whistleblower Program.
On June 8, TIGTA published a report entitled “Additional Actions Are Needed to Improve Data Collection and Analysis of Whistleblower Claims and Ensure Full Compliance With the Taxpayer First Act.” The report, the result of an extensive audit of the IRS Whistleblower Program, contained a number of recommendations on how the IRS can improve the effectiveness of the program.
“From Fiscal Years 2017 through 2021, the IRS paid over $589 million in awards to whistleblowers based on nearly $3 billion in proceeds collected due to whistleblowers’ information,” the report states. “However, TIGTA found that the Whistleblower Office does not capture all of the data that could be used to determine whether the whistleblower claims with the most potential to be productive are being referred for enforcement.”
According to TIGTA, the IRS Whistleblower Office does not collect enough data to be able to track what factors make a whistleblower claim more effective than others.
The report further states that: “the Whistleblower Office is not fully compliant with these provisions of the Taxpayer First Act. Specifically, the Whistleblower Office did not always notify whistleblowers when...
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