Whistleblower Protection Blog : Whistleblower Lawyer & Attorney : National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund : Whistleblower Protection, Fraud Claims : Washington DC

Today the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC), the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) urged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review the case of Bradley Birkenfeld, the international banker who blew the whistle on secret offshore accounts at UBS Bank in Switzerland. On August 21, Mr. Birkenfeld was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison for his actions, despite the fact that UBS's tax fraud scheme never would have been discovered without Mr. Birkenfeld's disclosure.

The letter calls on the Department of Justice to reconsider Mr. Birkenfeld's case and "take action to prevent one of the worst setbacks in international law enforcement history."

Whistleblowers who open the door on offshore accounts are not only exposing tax evasion but also the criminals involved in human trafficking,terrorism, drugs and bribery.  The Department of Justice needs to immediately review the negative ramifications of prosecuting individuals who blow the whistle on secret banking.

You can TAKE ACTION by sending your own letter to Attorney General Holder.  

You can read the full letter by clicking here.

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A reporter from World Radio Switzerland recently interviewed Stephen Kohn on Bradley Birkenfeld, the Swiss banker who blew the whistle on secret offshore accounts. Mr. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblowers Center, recently became Mr. Birkenfeld’s lawyer, and is urging the U.S government to review the case. Although he exposed billions of dollars in tax fraud, Mr. Birkenfeld was sentenced to over 3 years in prison in August.

Mr. Birkenfeld is entitled to 15-30% of the money accrued under the IRS tax whistleblower provision, yet he is being punished in exchange for the valuable information he handed over. Punishing Mr. Birkenfeld does a disservice to national and international anti-corruption efforts and discourages other international bankers from coming forward and blowing the whistle.
 
You can find the entire interview with Stephen Kohn by clicking here.

*Erin Jensen (a NWC intern) contributed to this posting. 

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The Associated Press reports that since Congress beefed up the rewards for tax whistleblowers late in 2006, the number of big money tips coming to the IRS has jumped from 116 in 2007 to 1,246 last year. "The tax code improvements are still new, and I hope more whistleblowers will come forward as word gets out," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told the AP.  The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 guarantees a reward to tipsters who point the IRS to big tax cheats.  If the recovery is over $2 million, and the cheater has an income of over $200,000, then the tipster is entitled to a reward of between 15 and 30 percent of the recovery. The IRS may also reward tipsters in cases where the recovery is less, but those rewards are not guaranteed.

Stephen M. Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center, raised a concern about this program in light of the government's prosecution of UBS whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld. Coming forward poses "a high level of risk and most people won't do it," Kohn told the AP. "You have to protect them if they are retaliated against and you have to reward them for coming forward." Kohn added that the best way to encourage more people to come forward is for the IRS to move faster and start rewarding those who already have.

A Reuters story reports that the IRS has still not paid any rewards under the program. "The real concern is that there has not been a single award... the wind is beginning to come out of the sails of this program," attorney Dean Zerbe told Reuters.

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