In this episode of the Whistleblower of the Week podcast, host Jane Turner speaks with leading tax whistleblower expert and advocate Dean Zerbe, partner at Zerbe, Miller, Fingeret, Frank and Jadav, LLP and Senior Policy Analyst at the National Whistleblower Center.
Prior to entering private practice, Zerbe was active in Congressional investigations of government waste, fraud, and abuse for over 25 years. As Senior Counsel and Tax Counsel on the Senate Finance Committee for Senator Charles E. Grassley, Zerbe was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of legislation that created the Whistleblower Office at the IRS as well as changes in the tax code that greatly expanded the rewards for tax whistleblowers.
In this episode, Turner and Zerbe dive into the current state of tax whistleblowing under the IRS Whistleblower Program, discussing its successes as well as its flaws. Zerbe explains how recent efforts have made the program more efficient but outlines the urgent need for specific reforms.
Turner and Zerbe also discuss Zerbe’s own unique career path as a tax whistleblower advocate and the inspiration behind the 2006 IRS whistleblower law he helped write.
Zerbe and the National Whistleblower Center (NWC) are calling for the passage of reforms found in the IRS Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2023. NWC has set up an Action Alert allowing individuals to write to their members of Congress urging them to pass the reforms to strengthen the IRS Whistleblower Program.
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