Washington, D.C. December 16, 2017. The final version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill has eliminated two key provisions to protect whistleblowers who report major criminal tax frauds.
The National Whistleblower Center today issued an Action Alert asking the American public to oppose the tax bill based on the elimination of these two critical anti-fraud protections.
The House-Senate Conference cut Section 11079 of the Senate bill, which would have ensured that whistleblowers who report criminal tax frauds are covered under the whistleblower tax law. The provision made certain that whistleblowers could qualify for rewards based on criminal fines and sanctions collected by the government that was based on their original information. Section 11078, which was also cut, ensured that corporate whistleblower would not have been subjected to double-taxation on rewards in securities fraud cases.
The Senate had unanimously approved the two amendments, but both were cut from the final version of the bill approved in the House-Senate conference over the weekend.
“This is a betrayal of the public trust. Whistleblowers, especially those who work in foreign banks that engage in money laundering (such as Deutsche Bank), are without adequate protection even as they risk their careers to expose criminal frauds,” explained Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center.
Links:
- Section 11078- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Conference Report, whistleblower provisions on pages 689-690.
- Section 11079- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Conference Report, whistleblower provisions on pages 690-695.
- Action Alert: Tax Bill Betrays Whistleblowers- Urge NO Vote!
- Whistleblower Reforms Cut from Final Tax Bill- explains the importance of the two provisions.