Director Whitlock spoke along with Christopher Ehrman, the Director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s whistleblower program, and Sean McKessy, the Director of the Security and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program, at a webinar put on by the ABA Criminal Justice Section and Center for Professional Development. During this webinar, Director Whitlock gave a bit of a preview of what will be in the annual report to Congress when it comes out. First, Awards. Director Whitlock said that the IRS Whistleblower Office paid approximately $50 million in whistleblower awards in fiscal year 2013. While this number is not final, it should be a good estimate. This make fiscal year 2013 the year with the second highest payouts in the history of the program. Roughly, three quarters of that amount was paid to our client. Also, they are working on finalizing the regulations that were proposed in December of 2012.
Finally, Scott Knott’s question about the IRS Whistleblower program’s ability to act as a deterant prompted Director Whitlock to acknowledge that the actions of whistleblowers have been recognized, particularly in the case of offshore compliance, internally, in press releases, and in sentencing. It is great to hear that the contributions of whistleblowers are being acknowledged, especially internally at the IRS.
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