5 April 2014
The IRS has had a growing number of participants report tax fraud over the last year and has given out over $53 million dollars in rewards. The list of individuals who report the fraud can vary widely. While some of these may come from office workers or employees within a corporation who discover the violation, many violations are also being reported by family members, former spouses, in-laws, friends and a wide range of individuals. In 2013 the IRS collected about $367 million dollars in avoided taxes and it paid out just under 15% that amount in rewards to those reporting these violations. This amount came from 9,268 claims, of which it paid out 122 claims. This means that about 13% of those who filed claims received a reward. The $53 million amount is down by over 50% from what it was the previous year, which totaled over $120 million in tax fraud rewards during 2012.
The system itself can be cumbersome and slow for citizens to deal with, with documentation and filing burdens causing many people to either make mistakes in the process...thus potentially contributing to the low success rate of paid claims at merely 13%. However, of the 122 people receiving payments, they averaged approximately $430,000 each for their proposals. OffRecord intends to assist individuals in getting these proposals done correctly and ensure that the filing occur in a timely manner to assist in receiving the justly earned reward.
More details on this article can be read here in the USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/05/irs-whistleblowe...