My take on whistleblowers
by Victor
In my view, whistle-blowers or qui tam actions will remain a small part of the overall tax enforcement strategy. Relying on whistle-blowers means providing bounties to insiders willing to turn against their clients or employers. The strategy relies on bad blood — a crumbling business partnership, office politics, a divorce or some other source of conflict — to bring information to the government’s attention. In many cases, the I.R.S. will have to team up with someone with unclean hands or a hidden agenda. Moreover, whistle-blowers will target black-and-white cases of tax fraud, while many aggressive tax planning techniques reside in the gray.