ATLANTA,GA
DULUTH, GA
We are encouraged that the IRS is taking action in response to the fraudulent practice of “back-dating” of stock options. Potential whistleblowers may wish to see the IRS’ description of its program to deal with an aspect of this problem.
Here is an excerpt from the IRS’ announcement of how it is permitting employers to “step forward” and pay a penalty, and a related IRS Release can be read here:
(From IRS Release:)
(more…)Taxpayers every day lose money because of fraud against their government. Current examples include government contracting fraud in Iraq, procurement fraud regarding the efforts of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Hurricane Katrina and numerous false claim schemes under both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Those who are bent of fraud are usually clever and devious. This is the very reason why President Abraham Lincoln enacted the False Claims Act during the American Civil War in 1863.
During the Civil War, as today, there were
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As former federal prosecutors, it is always of interest to us to read about grand jury indictments involving fraud schemes. We have presented many such indictments to grand juries ourselves and know how the system works. On Tuesday of this week, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., returned an indictment against three Army Reserve Officers and two civilians based on allegations that they steered more than $8.6 million dollars in Iraqi reconstruction funds to a contractor in exchange for a variety of kickbacks and other
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We saw more good news when the IRS announced the first director of the new IRS Whistleblower Office–Stephen A. Whitlock. Mr. Whitlock was formerly in charge of the Office of Professional Responsibility. He also had led anti-fraud and abuse programs at the Defense Department.
The IRS’s press release is reprinted here:
IRS Begins Work on Whistleblower Office; Whitlock Named First Director
(more…)According to a recent report issued by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, State enforcement results regarding Medicaid fraud cases have been disappointing. Virtually every state in the country has a State Medicaid Fraud Control Unit whose principle job is to uncover and detect fraud and to prosecute the offenders. Such units are also tasked with the responsibility of attempting to recover monies fraudulently obtained from the Medicaid program. Because Medicaid is approximately twenty (20%) percent of the total federal
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We saw yesterday’s quarterly audit report on Iraq fraud, published by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Stuart Bowen Jr. The message is sobering:
“The security situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, hindering progress in all reconstruction sectors and threatening the overall reconstruction effort,” in the words of the Inspector General.
We all have already seen reports of how the United States is being exploited by dishonest and incompetent contractors in Iraq. This IG Report discusses not only poor security, but also
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We saw another significant whistleblower case against a drug company hit the news wire this week.
The government announced that it was joining a qui tam lawsuit under the False Claims Act against the company Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane, Inc. The Complaint alleges overcharging on pharmaceutical products.
In joining this lawsuit, the United States has alleged that the drug company engaged in a “scheme to report fraudulent and inflated prices for several pharmaceutical products, knowing that federal health care programs established reimbursement rates based on those reported prices.”
(more…)We have been working with the IRS to bring information about large tax cheating to the IRS’s attention, so that clients can participate in the new IRS Whistleblower rewards. The IRS officials sound excited to have this new tool at their disposal, and we are happy to help our whistleblower clients obtain the new rewards. Our latest one deals with fraud in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, where the public and government have been cheated out of what appears to be many millions of
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We all remember how Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita left the Gulf Coast devastated. As government agencies began to provide disaster relief with public dollars, dishonest contractors saw a huge opportunity for fraud against the government. Too many FEMA contracts have been the targets of dishonest contractors.
The “watchdogs” of the federal government agencies–the various Inspectors General of the many agencies involved in Katrina relief–have combined their efforts and sent hundreds of auditors to the Gulf region to examine fraud and mismanagement of Katrina
We hear from many lawyers and clients that they are not aware of the new IRS Whistleblower Rewards Program. The new provisions took effect on December 20, 2006, and yet so far they are locate on the web.
We hope it is helpful to you to find the new IRS Whistleblower Rewards amendments here, in the amended version of the statute:
26 U.S.C. § 7623.
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