With tax season approaching, the IRS has alerted the public to “tax preparer fraud” by issuing issued a “fact sheet” (at https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=202123,00.html). The IRS also has attached information about reporting abusive tax schemes through the IRS Whistleblower Program, which provides rewards to whistleblowers. Interestingly, the IRS has included descriptions of…
The Treasury Department last week issued its December 2008 report to Congress on what it has done with the “bailout” funds through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and Capital Purchase Program (CPP). With more than 200 institutions receiving taxpayer money, an overriding question is how to prevent and redress…
The TARP bailout funding continues, as the Treasury Department announced today that it will buy $5 billion in senior preferred equity with an 8% dividend from GMAC LLC. Senator Charles Grassley has emphasized that TARP and other “bailout” funds must be protected through whistleblower protections and whistleblower laws such as…
Fraudulent tax shelters continue to be a target not only of IRS Whistleblower claims, but also of enforcement actions. We have followed closely the KPMG tax shelter fraud case in this whistleblower lawyer blog. The trial of four defendants ended this week, with two former KPMG partners and one attorney…
Some recent significant recoveries under the False Claims Act–the nation’s primary tool for fighting fraud and false claims–are summarized below. This summary is part of a paper I submitted in connection with serving on the faculty (with some excellent attorneys) of the “Southeastern Health Care Fraud Institute” on December 18,…
The country’s ongoing economic distress has produced layoffs in many industries, and pharma appears to be feeling the pain as well. Recent layoffs reported in the drug industry include Sanofi (650 sales reps);Novartis (550 U.S. salespersons);Merck (8,000); Wyeth (2,440); GSK (1,000); Schering-Plough (5,500);and Boehringer Ingelheim (200).
On the same grey November day when President Bush visited Wall Street’s Federal Hall to address the ever-morphing “bailout,” I was in lower Manhattan meeting with IRS officials about an IRS Whistleblower matter. The tax evasion scheme we discussed was yet another that has cost taxpayers dearly. As NYPD officers…
The Justice Department has announced that its investigation of offshore tax evasion will expand to include Europe’s largest bank, HSBC in London, and Credit Suisse in Zurich. The increasing scrutiny of illegal offshore tax schemes comes as the Wall Street bailout and turmoil in the banking and financial services industries…
Will Wall Street Bailout Produce the Next Round of Whistleblowers Reporting Fraud? The U.S. Department of Justice this week announced its FY 2008 recoveries in fraud and False Claims Act cases, with more than $1 billion in health care fraud recoveries alone, and a total of more than $1.3 billion.…
One of the hallmarks of the new IRS Whistleblower Rewards Program is that whistleblowers have an enforceable right to rewards, and can appeal the IRS Whistleblower Office’s rewards decisions to the U.S. Tax Court. The Tax Court has taken a step forward in issuing new proposed amendments to its Rules…