UK Announces Breakthrough Tax Whistleblower Award Framework

This week, the United Kingdom announced plans for an award scheme for UK tax whistleblowers in a major breakthrough for the nation’s anti-fraud enforcement system. The new system, overseen by HM Revenues & Customs (HMRC), will be modeled after the United States’s highly successful tax whistleblower award program.

Stephen M. Kohn, partner at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto and attorney for UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld and Danske Bank whistleblower Howard Wilkinson celebrated the announcement, commenting: “The UK’s new tax whistleblower law is the most significant breakthrough in tax accountability since UBS was forced to disclose thousands of US taxpayer names in the Birkenfeld prosecution.”

Kohn, a leading whistleblower attorney, has collected over $400 million in tax awards for clients under the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Whistleblower Program. He continued: “The UK’s new system is modeled after highly successful U.S laws which permit every banker in the world to confidentially report their banks and clients to the appropriate authorities and obtain large financial rewards. A similar US law targeting US taxpayers forced UBS to pay a $780 million find and turn over the name of thousands of US account holders.”

“The UK has now modeled a tax whistleblower and reporting system on this highly successful framework. It is a major step forward for tax accountability and the ability to hold large banks and millionaires accountable to honest taxpayers.”