The United States awarded a former UBS banker $104 million for blowing the whistle on the Swiss bank and account holders who were evading U.S. taxes by depositing money overseas.
Bradley Birkenfeld was jailed after alerting the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service, sparking U.S. government pressure on the UBS and the Swiss government to turn over account holder information and an amnesty program for tax evaders to come clean.
Birkenfeld was released at the start of August and is now seeking a presidential pardon, according to Bloomberg News.
“The potential for this program is tremendous, and it”™s up to the IRS to continue paying rewards and demonstrating to whistleblowers that the process will work and that they will be heard and protected,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement released Tuesday. “An award of $104 million is obviously a great deal of money, but billions of dollars in taxes owed will be collected that otherwise would not have been paid as a result of the whistleblower information.”
The state of Connecticut awarded UBS up to $20 million in incentives last year to maintain its Stamford offices, after signals the bank was considering consolidating operations in New York City.
