he Inland Revenue Service (IRS) is a complex system which relies on a huge amount of self-compliance from those involved. That also means that it needs plenty of people to be watchful of where rules are being broken or correct practices are not being followed.

A part of that ecosystem is whistleblowers, who anonymously point out to the authorities that something is not being done correctly or the rules are not being followed in the right way.

Due to things such as internal pressure from other staff and the desire for job security, whistleblowing is an extremely brave and nerve-racking thing to do, hence why there is often a financial incentive put in place to encourage people to point out what is going wrong.

How much has the IRS paid whistleblowers?

Since the inception of the Whistleblower Office in 2007, the IRS has paid more than 1.05 billion dollars in over 2,500 awards to whistleblowers.

The information provided by these individuals led to the successful collection of over 6.39 billion dollars from non-compliant taxpayers. The awards paid to whistleblowers generally range between 15 to 30 percent of the proceeds collected and attributable to their information.

Three criteria

There are three criteria that claims tend to meet if a payout is to take place, and they are set out by the IRS as shown below.

• Specific: The information provided allows the IRS to identify the taxpayer and specifies what the alleged tax violation is. Documentation, if available, or a...

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