Tag Archive for Whistleblowers

SEC Awards More Than $104 Million To Seven Whistleblowers

SEC Awards More Than $104 Million To Seven Whistleblowers

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced awards of more than $104 million to seven individuals whose information and assistance led to a successful SEC enforcement action and related actions brought by another agency. Today’s combined award is the fourth largest in the SEC’s whistleblower program’s history.

The seven whistleblowers were composed of two sets of joint claimants and three single claimants, and each provided information that either prompted the opening of or significantly contributed to an SEC investigation. The seven individuals’ assistance to the staff included providing documents supporting the allegations of misconduct, sitting for interviews, and identifying potential witnesses.

“Today’s awards show that specific and credible information plays an integral part in the SEC’s enforcement efforts,” said Creola Kelly, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. “These whistleblowers provided information that helped Enforcement staff detect and prosecute wrongdoing in a timely manner.”

Payments to whistleblowers are made out of an investor protection fund, established by Congress, which is financed entirely through monetary sanctions paid to the SEC by securities law violators. No money has been taken or withheld from harmed investors to pay whistleblower awards. Whistleblowers may be eligible for an award when they voluntarily provide the SEC with original, timely, and credible information that leads to a successful enforcement action, and adhere to filing requirements in the whistleblower rules. Whistleblower awards can range from 10 to 30 percent of the money collected when the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million.
Read More

Written by | Posted in Securities and Exchange Commission

Does Your Spouse Want To Out You To The IRS?

Venar Ayar- Does Your Spouse

Whistle blowers are among the favorite heroes loved by the IRS. In fact, the IRS loves them so much that it has a program that may award a whistle blower up to 30% of the evaded tax or penalty it collects. While this should not be a problem to anyone that pays their taxes dutifully, you should be concerned if someone can blow the whistle on your illegal operations. So, who are these whistle blowers? Former employees, ex-business partners and even spouses are some of the people that may decide to out you to the IRS. These people may decide to turn on you for a couple of reasons and this blog article will help you know what to do in case it happens. But first things first.

Why do spouses turn on each other?

It is painful to think that the person you have committed your life to can blow the whistle on you. These people, however, have spent so much time with you and are likely to know some of your secrets including your tax evading tactics. Here are some reasons why spouses turn on each other.

1. Emotions

Let’s be frank here. Your spouse will not want to out you to the IRS if you are still in love with each other. This is especially true for people who are going through a divorce proceeding. There is likely to be an emotional element that makes a spouse or separated partner want to turn you in because of tax crimes. Maybe they feel hurt, betrayed or neglected over something you did to end the marriage and they may want to have their revenge. While there are other reasons for outing you, it is crucial that you do not underestimate the role of emotions in this. After all, you might end up in jail just because of this.

Read More

Written by | Posted in TaxConnections

Tax Court Decision Gives Whistleblowers Additional Reward

In what is being hailed as a landmark decision, the U.S. Tax Court recently sided with a pair of whistleblowers who provided information that assisted the U.S. government in a high-stakes tax evasion investigation. The decision allowed the whistleblowers for the first time to collect a percentage of the taxpayer’s criminal penalties and civil forfeitures, in addition to the unpaid taxes recovered by the IRS.

Read More

Written by | Posted in Expatriate • International • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Another Offshore Whistle Blower – Former HSBC Employee!

whistle blowWe first posted Whistleblower Exposes Massive Offshore Corruption!  On May 6, 2013 where the enormous value of whistleblowers has once again been demonstrated with the release of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists into off-shore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories hiding trillions of dollars in income and assets

The anonymous whistleblower sent to the ICIJ 2.5 million electronic files containing what the organization calls “the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization.”

Now we have come to discover another whistleblower, an HSBC employee who passed data  a former  to French authorities about the bank’s Swiss arm has supplied a list of nearly 3,000 secret accounts belonging to French residents or entities, hiding up to $5 billion (CHF4.8 billion) in undeclared assets.

The figure was revealed on Wednesday July 10, 2013, in a French parliamentary report. The report also described a variety of legal, technical, diplomatic and procedural issues that began almost as soon as the French tax authorities received five DVDs of data.

The report, explaining why it had taken so long to act on the data, said that there were internal obstacles over the different remits of the tax authorities and the prosecutor’s office, which in 2010 transferred responsibility for the case from the Mediterranean city of Nice to Paris. Read More

Written by | Posted in United States