I’m posting again on the August IRS final regulations for tax whistleblowers, whose principal author is Melissa A. Jarboe of the Office of theAssociate Chief Counsel (Procedure and Administration). This could be a very boring post, because what I’ll do is compare what I suggested and what was done on several unrelated topics. If you’re interested in whistleblowing, in how little details require regulations because statutes don’t include them, or in how notice-and-comment works, you might like this blogpost.
Relevant links are my previous blog post that used these regulations to illustrate the usefulness of public comment on technical details, my public comment on the proposed regulations, the final regulations, Dean Zerbe’s article arguing that awards should be paid for violation of reporting requirements and on the basis of criminal fines for violation of laws not in the Tax Code, and Erica Brady’s nice blog summaries of (a) the Pro’s and Con’s of the final regulations, and (b) the important new procedures for rejections and appeals. I agree with Erica Brady that these final regulations are an improvement over the proposed regulations and a huge improvement over the status quo. I am heartened by them; the IRS has shown distaste for the whistleblower statute in the past, but these regulations will make it run better rather than worse.
The topics follow.
(1) How to treat whistleblower information about false tax attributes such as net operating loss carryforwards (NOL’s).