3 ms·

Isn't that what Form 211 does? You can get up to 30% of what the IRS collects. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/form-211.asp https://www.investopedia.com/t

by the-rc 3y ago

Isn't that what Form 211 does? You can get up to 30% of what the IRS collects. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/form-211.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/form-211.asp "In 2021, it was reported that 645 claims were submitted, resulting in 179 awards for a total of $36 million on an additional $245 million collected. In 2020, there were 593 claims and 169 awards for a total of $86.6 million paid out on $472 million in additional collections."

mycologos 3y ago
Nice, I was not aware of this. It looks like there are some additional stipulations: * If the subject of the claim is an individual, they must have $200k+ income in at least one of the relevant years, and the amount recovered must exceed $2mil. * You can't have obtained the relevant information through your (or your friend/partner/relative's) activities as a federal employee. * It will probably take about 10 years for the affected party's appeals process to complete itself (see the flow chart on p9 of the linked document, and the chart on p21). * It also appears that the IRS requires more than the publicly available information described in TFA, as p12 of that document implies that "claims based entirely on publicly available information" are also "non-meritorious". So, the exercise conducted by the journalist appears to not qualify for a reward, even though in at least one of the cases it produced a collection. This bit is unclear to me -- I can't tell if it's just ruling out people who spam submissions saying "public figure X is definitely a tax evader!!!" or if you really need to provide additional non-public documents to get anything. There is a random Forbes article about this [2] that claims "the IRS is happiest when you have first-hand (insider information even better) knowledge of the taxpayer and the tax issues". But if you jump through all those hoops, you can get 15-30% of the additional money collected. Form 211 itself is pretty short [3]. [1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5241.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5241.pdf [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/deanzerbe/2021/06/10/tax-whistleblower---the-dos-and-donts-of-filing-a-form-211/?sh=44c73997de27 https://www.forbes.com/sites/deanzerbe/2021/06/10/tax-whistl... [3] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf
- ethbr0 3y ago
  > So, the exercise conducted by the journalist appears to not qualify for a reward, even though in at least one of the cases it produced a collection. The journalist (Jeff Ernsthausen) was able to bargain their way into non-public tours, that provided evidence of tax evasion. Basic sleuthing (photos of premises from the street, phone inquiries about hours, etc) seems like it'd qualify as first-hand information.

by the-rc 3y ago

mycologos 3y ago

Nice, I was not aware of this. It looks like there are some additional stipulations: * If the subject of the claim is an individual, they must have $200k+ income in at least one of the relevant years, and the amount recovered must exceed $2mil. * You can't have obtained the relevant information through your (or your friend/partner/relative's) activities as a federal employee. * It will probably take about 10 years for the affected party's appeals process to complete itself (see the flow chart on p9 of the linked document, and the chart on p21). * It also appears that the IRS requires more than the publicly available information described in TFA, as p12 of that document implies that "claims based entirely on publicly available information" are also "non-meritorious". So, the exercise conducted by the journalist appears to not qualify for a reward, even though in at least one of the cases it produced a collection. This bit is unclear to me -- I can't tell if it's just ruling out people who spam submissions saying "public figure X is definitely a tax evader!!!" or if you really need to provide additional non-public documents to get anything. There is a random Forbes article about this [2] that claims "the IRS is happiest when you have first-hand (insider information even better) knowledge of the taxpayer and the tax issues". But if you jump through all those hoops, you can get 15-30% of the additional money collected. Form 211 itself is pretty short [3]. [1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5241.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5241.pdf [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/deanzerbe/2021/06/10/tax-whistleblower---the-dos-and-donts-of-filing-a-form-211/?sh=44c73997de27 https://www.forbes.com/sites/deanzerbe/2021/06/10/tax-whistl... [3] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf

ethbr0 3y ago
> So, the exercise conducted by the journalist appears to not qualify for a reward, even though in at least one of the cases it produced a collection. The journalist (Jeff Ernsthausen) was able to bargain their way into non-public tours, that provided evidence of tax evasion. Basic sleuthing (photos of premises from the street, phone inquiries about hours, etc) seems like it'd qualify as first-hand information.