Whistleblower Awarded $104M for Exposing Swiss Banking Tax Evasion

Congratulations to our friends at Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto for securing the largest whistleblower award to an individual in history. On September 11, 2012, the National Whistleblowers Center announced the IRS award of $104,000,000 to Bradley Birkenfeld – the whistleblower who exposed a massive tax evasion scheme involving Swiss bank accounts.

At the recorded press conference, Attorney Stephen M. Kohn declared:

Today, the IRS sent 104 million messages to whistleblowers around the world – there is an effective way to report tax fraud, and that the IRS is now paying awards. The IRS also sent 104 million messages to banks around the world – stop-enabling tax cheats or you will get caught. Finally, the IRS sent a message to every American who has an illegal offshore account: Turn yourself in now under the IRS’ Amnesty program, before your banker does! The $104 million dollar reward paid to Mr. Birkenfeld is the largest whistleblower reward issued to a single individual. It is the largest recovery ever under the Tax Whistleblower law.

It recognizes Mr. Birkenfeld’s incredible contributions to America: Disclosures that have already resulted in the recovery of over $5 Billion Dollars in fines, penalties and back taxes. Disclosures that forced his former employer, UBS bank to pay a $780 Million Dollar fine. Disclosures that caused Switzerland and the U.S. to change their tax treaty, permitting UBS to disclose the names of over 4700 U.S. citizens who held secret illegal accounts.