Phillips & Cohen partner Erika Kelton argues in her latest for Forbes.com that the IRS must better incorporate whistleblowers and their information into its enforcement efforts to shrink the estimated $1 trillion gap in taxes owed and taxes collected.
The problem for the IRS is not a lack of good information from whistleblowers – the IRS gets several thousand whistleblower submissions each year. The problem is that the IRS resists pursuing whistleblower cases because of an institutional dislike of whistleblowers, and most of those cases it does pursue involve small-time tax fraud.
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The IRS’s failure to take advantage of whistleblower information about large-scale tax fraud and abuse is disgraceful and inexplicable.
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If Congress approves Biden’s increased funding for the IRS, a sizeable share should be directed to boost enforcement efforts based on whistleblower information. The return on that investment would be an effective way to help reduce the tax gap.
Read the entire article, “IRS And Whistleblowers: Change Is Needed To Catch Big-Time Tax Cheats,” on Forbes.com