Grassley Presses the IRS on Whistleblower Program After Report Outlines Challenges

Statement

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today wrote to the IRS commissioner, asking a series of questions designed to help the agency improve its whistleblower operation to encourage people with information about big-dollar tax cheating to come forward and lead to the substantial recovery of tax dollars for the U.S. Treasury. Grassley's letter came after the Government Accountability Office released a report describing the barriers to complete success for the whistleblower program.

"The GAO has done a good service by providing a road map for how the IRS can improve the IRS whistleblower program and go after big-dollar tax cheating," Grassley wrote in his letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman. "Now the challenge is for the IRS and Treasury to make the changes needed to provide assurance to existing and future whistleblowers so they're not discouraged by the time needed to process their claims or by the issuance of rules that contradict well-established rules for compensation of non-tax whistleblowers. The vast majority of taxpayers are honest. They're the ones who benefit from a successful whistleblower program. More tax compliance means more fairness for hardworking families who pay what they owe."

Grassley wrote the 2006 law improving the IRS whistleblower office. He modeled the whistleblower improvements after the successful 1986 whistleblower amendments to the federal False Claims Act, which have brought back more than $27 billion to the federal treasury and deterred even more fraudulent activity.

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