IRS pays whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld $104M
(AP) WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service has awarded an ex-banker $104 million for providing information about overseas tax cheats - the largest amount ever awarded by the agency, lawyers for the whistleblower announced Tuesday.
Former Swiss banker Bradley Birkenfeld is credited with exposing widespread tax evasion at Swiss bank UBS AG. Birkenfeld himself served roughly two and-a-half years in prison for a fraud conspiracy conviction related to the case, which resulted in a $780 million fine against the bank and an unprecedented agreement requiring UBS to turn over thousands of names of suspected American tax dodgers to the IRS.
"The IRS today sent 104 million messages to whistleblowers around the world - that there is now a safe and secure way to report tax fraud and that the IRS is now paying awards," Birkenfeld's lawyers, Stephen M. Kohn and Dean A. Zerbe, said in a statement. "The IRS also sent 104 million messages to banks around the world - stop enabling tax cheats or you will get caught."
The IRS, which doesn't usually confirm individual award payments, said Birkenfeld signed a disclosure waiver, allowing the agency to confirm his award.
"The IRS believes that the whistleblower statute provides a valuable tool to combat tax non-compliance, and this award reflects our commitment to the law," IRS spokeswoman Michele Eldridge said in an email.
"60 Minutes": A crack in the Swiss vault
"60 Minutes" video: Birkenfeld on Swiss secrecy
Birkenfeld has become something of a cause celebre among whistleblowers because of the magnitude of his case and the fact that he was jailed after cooperating with authorities.
In a summary of the award provided by Birkenfeld's lawyers, the IRS said, "The comprehensive information provided by the whistleblower was exceptional in both its breadth and depth."
"While the IRS was aware of tax compliance issues related to secret bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere, the information provided by the whistleblower formed the basis for unprecedented actions against UBS AG, with collateral impact on other enforcement activities and a continuing impact on future compliance by UBS AG," the IRS said in the summary.
Federal prosecutors, however, had said Birkenfeld withheld information about his own dealings with a former UBS client who pleaded guilty in 2007 to tax charges.
In 2006, Congress strengthened whistleblower rewards. The 2006 law targets high-income tax dodgers, guaranteeing rewards for qualified whistleblowers if the company in question owes a least $2 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties.
Some lawmakers, however, have complained that the IRS has been slow to pay out awards.
"The potential for this program is tremendous, and it's up to the IRS to continue paying rewards and demonstrating to whistleblowers that the process will work and that they will be heard and protected," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who helped write the law. "An award of $104 million is obviously a great deal of money, but billions of dollars in taxes owed will be collected that otherwise would not have been paid, as a result of the whistleblower information."
Watch an excerpt of Birkenfeld's 2010 interview with "60 Minutes":
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And, why isn't CBS talking about the latest DOJ report on Holder's pet project ? The IG report came out today.
But why was he prosecuted?
Obama has declared war on whistleblowers. He has used the Espionage Act more times during his 4 years than in the Act's entire 90 year history before Obama!
Obama prosecuted Thomas Drake, who uncovered waste and abuse in the NSA. Drake's whistleblowing was unrelated to terrorism, yet Obama's Justice Department charged him with enough crimes to get him put away for hundreds of years! Despite all the Government's pressure, Drake refused a plea deal. Then, on the eve of his trial, the Government dropped almost all the charges! Drake ended up being convicted of a puny misdemeanor---failure to secure confidential information (roughly the equivalent of forgetting to lock the desk drawer). Drake got no jail time, just probation---but still ended up loosing his job at NSA.
Obama is also pursuing John Kirkorian, who release information showing that the government waterboarded far more people than it admitted to. This seems bizarre, because the abuse happened before Obama was even in office, and Obama has declared an end to all waterboarding.
Obama is also attacking Bradley Manning, who release the Apache helicopter video that showed that the U.S. was killing innocent children, then declaring that they were in a combat zone (when actually the helicopter created the combat zone in the first place by firing on the children). Also killed in the Apache attack was a Reuters photographer. Manning is being held in outrageously abusive conditions, naked in a cell lit 24 hours a day without a blanket, mattress, or access to any outside information. His lawyer also says that he is being denied access to his client.
And of course there is Julian Assange, who has been demonized in the U.S. press via undocumented leaks from anonymous Government officials. He is hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, facing an international arrest warrant because he is wanted for "questioning" in a rape case in Sweeden. But Assange has not been charged with any crime! The rape case seems completely drummed up only as a way to force Assange into a country where he can be seized and extradited to the U.S. Since when do people get forcibly extradited to foreign countries for mere "questioning" when they have not been officially indicted or charged with a single crime?
And I have said nothing about Obama's secret war in Yemen---using U.S. drone missiles to kill supposed al Qaeda terrorists, even though the Yemen president whom we are propping up is a murderous thug, and some of the supposed "terrorists" are American citizens being targeted and killed without any warrant or judicial review. One person killed was 16 year old American citizen Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki. The government at first lied and said that he was actually 20 years old and active in terrorist activities, until his grandparents released his Colorado birth certificate.
Obama talks a good game, but on human rights issues, in many ways he is far worse than George W. Bush.