Tax Fraud

Kirby McInerney represents clients in tax whistleblower matters before the IRS and under state False Claims Acts that provide for tax qui tam cases.

The IRS program relates to any violation of federal tax laws, whether it was done fraudulently or by mistake.

A small and growing number of states allow for whistleblower tax claims under their state False Claims Acts. These include New York, Washington DC, Illinois, Indiana, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Claims under these programs are about knowing violations of state, and in some instances local, taxes.
 

Kirby McInerney’s Tax Whistleblower Practice

Kirby McInerney has one of the most active tax whistleblower practices in the nation. Our team has represented whistleblowers in several groundbreaking cases, including the largest income tax settlement ($105 million) under the New York False Claims Act and the largest settlement in a tax case that was declined by the government and pursued in post-declination litigation.

Our team includes Randall Fox, who before joining the firm was the founding Bureau Chief of New York’s Taxpayer Protection Bureau, which handles tax whistleblower claims under New York’s highly successful program.
 

About the Tax Whistleblower Programs

Who Can Be a Tax Whistleblower?

The best tax whistleblowers have reliable information about clear tax law violations. They can be company insiders or outsiders, or high-level or junior employees. What matters most is that they have a window into non-public, credible information about the violations and are able to report it.

Must the Tax Violations Be Fraudulent?

It depends on the program. The IRS program for federal taxes welcomes whistleblowers who have information about any federal tax violations, regardless of whether they are fraudulent violations. When a whistleblower reports on a violation, it is most important to lay out the facts showing what was violated and how. The state False Claims Act programs are only about knowing tax violations at the state and, sometimes, local level. Knowing violations are ones where the misconduct was done with either actual knowledge, reckless disregard of the truth, or deliberate ignorance of the truth. Unlike the IRS program, where the IRS seeks to recover the amount of taxes underpaid plus penalties and interest, the False Claims Acts provide for recoveries of three times the damages from knowingly false misconduct.
 

Blowing the Whistle on Federal Tax Violations

Making a claim about federal tax law violations in the IRS whistleblower program requires submitting materials to the IRS’ Whistleblower Office. Those materials should lay out all of the information the whistleblower has about the violations and any related information the whistleblower may know that would be useful to the IRS auditors in investigating the claims.

 

For more helpful information, please visit our tax whistleblower legal resources page.

 

Contact Kirby McInerney

If you are aware of tax violations and would like to discuss them with a member of Kirby McInerney’s Tax Whistleblower team, please contact us at our dedicated whistleblower line, 212-699-1160, or by filling out this form.