As millions of law-abiding taxpayers consummate their annual duty on Tax Day, we all know there are others who don’t share the same commitment to rendering unto the IRS. Now, if you turn those tax evaders in, you can get a piece of the action. So says the Internal Revenue Service.

It’s part of the IRS’s 2-year-old “Whistleblower” office (yes, they had the name first). Here are the rules of the bounty. They’re not looking for people who overstate the value of those donated toasters - the thieving taxpayer needs a gross income of at least $200,000 and the amount “in dispute” has to total at least $2 million. The “informant” gets a cut of 15-30 percent of the “collected proceeds,” although the IRS could cut that percentage further.

It all starts with form 211, the nobly named “Application for Award for Original Information,” better described as the “snitch form.”

Your identity will be protected - to a point, according to the IRS guidance.The IRS might have to identify you in a judicial proceeding.

In its first year of operation, from December 2006 to December 2007, 80 claims were filed with the Whistleblower office, accounting for “hundreds of millions of dollars,” the IRS quotes Stephen Whitlock, director of their Whistleblower Office.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am and is filed under How to blow the whistle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.