IRS Tax Evasion Whistleblower Details How He Took Down Swiss Bank Secrecy

IRS tax evasion whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld, whose disclosures broke the seal of Swiss bank secrecy, was recently featured in a story published by Full Measure.

Birkenfeld, a former international banker with UBS (Switzerland), was the first whistleblower to report wealthy Americans’ use of illegal offshore accounts for tax evasion.

“What we would do is we would set up accounts for Americans in Geneva or Zurich where they had a numbered account, and they wouldn’t pay any capital gains tax, no income tax, no inheritance tax, and Swiss bank secrecy allowed no one to look at that account. Government, ex-wives, tax authorities, business partners, whatever.”

Birkenfeld’s disclosures led to the IRS Whistleblower Program, granting him a reward of $104 million, the largest qui tam reward in the history of whistleblower reward laws.