Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today made the following comment on the Internal Revenue Service's annual whistleblower report to Congress and the agency's response to Grassley's letter expressing concern about problems implementing new incentives for whistleblowers to come forward on tax fraud. Grassley authored the 2006 whistleblower improvements.
"The report shows a drop in whistleblowers coming forward. That's alarming. Instead of rushing to raise new revenue through tax increases, as the President wants, the government should work with whistleblowers to collect taxes that are due under current tax levels. I'm concerned that the delay in awards and the way the IRS treats whistleblowers might be contributing to the drop in whistleblower cases. Unfortunately, the regulations proposed in December are likely to further contribute to a drop-off in whistleblowers coming forward. The IRS has made some progress in processing and tracking claims, but whistleblowers are still left in the dark for years. The IRS needs to do a lot more to give whistleblowers the confidence they need to take the risk of coming forward to expose tax fraud."
The IRS' annual report to Congress on whistleblowers is available here. The agency's response to Grassley's Jan. 28 letter is available here. Grassley's Jan. 28 letter is available here.
