The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Whistleblower Program revolutionized tax fraud enforcement. Since the program was established in 2006, whistleblowers have contributed to the successful collection of $6.39 billion from non-compliant taxpayers. Correspondingly, the IRS has granted over $1 billion in whistleblower awards to brave individuals who have come forward with information about tax fraud.
Despite the program’s success, the need for reforms has been evident for years. In June of 2021, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who crafted the 2006 legislation establishing the IRS Whistleblower Program, introduced the bipartisan IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act of 2021 alongside Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). The bill makes several reforms to the IRS Whistleblower Program in order to improve the program’s operations and better protect whistleblowers who expose tax fraud.
At the time of the bill’s introduction, Grassley noted that while “the IRS whistleblower program has been a genuine success for American taxpayers,” it needs strengthening. “We ought to do whatever we can to ensure its continued success, so tax dodgers and fraudsters pay what they owe,” he stated.
While Grassley and whistleblower advocates knew that the IRS Whistleblower Program needed reform, the IRS Whistleblower Office’s Annual Report to Congress for the 2021 Fiscal Year underscores the urgent need for the reforms offered by the IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act.
The statistics offered by the...
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