Whistleblower Wins Fresh Look at Award for Wall Street Tax Probe

A whistleblower who alerted the IRS to several Wall Street firms helping clients avoid paying certain taxes successfully challenged the agency’s decision to downsize one of his awards after the DC Circuit determined the IRS couldn’t justify the move.

The record doesn’t support the IRS’s argument that it was already investigating several prominent firms by the time it received information from the anonymous person, identified as Whistleblower 11099-13W, Judge Bradley N. Garcia said. The evidence the agency provided to that effect was merely an exchange of emails in which IRS agents didn’t clearly establish how they had begun their investigation, ...