Earlier this year the IRS awarded Bradley Birkenfeld a record award of $104,000,000. The Wall Street Journal has a great article on the award.
In order to recieve an award you have to provide the IRS with specific and credible information. This information then has to result in the collection of money from the “taxpayer.”
The request for a Whistleblower award is done by filing IRS Form 211.
There are two types of Whistleblower awards:
1) If you are able to uncover a liability of more that $2 million then the potential award is 15 to 30 percent of the amount collected.
2) If the $2 million threshold cannot be met then you can get a maximum award of 15% of the amount collected.
More details on the program are available on the IRS Whistleblower website.
The law enforcement officers for the IRS are called Special Agents. There are a very limited number of the agents and they are generally overwhelmed with work. Tax evasion is a popular sport for some.
When Special Agent’s investigate a case they are required to prepare a memorandum of their findings. If you can prepare a memorandum with the facts and law to support your case – you will be closer to success.
Goal is to make the agents job easier. The less work the agent has to do the better.