A Setback for Whistle-Blowers?
Jan 4th, 2010 • Posted in: What They're Saying“It’s a setback for whistle-blowers everywhere. It just undermines the public interest that thousands of major tax cheats all escape any prosecution, and the one person who turned it in gets the longest sentence.”
– Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center in Washington and the attorney for Bradley Birkenfeld, “a key informant in a U.S. investigation of offshore tax evasion aided by UBS.” Kohn made his comment on Monday after a judge ordered Birkenfeld to begin serving his two-year prison sentence — by far the longest sentence imposed on anyone involved in the tax evasion scam, reports BusinessWeek.
Birkenfeld, who pleaded guilty in 2008, was instrumental in helping the U.S. government prosecute UBS and its officers, all of whom received far lighter prison sentences. UBS “paid $780 million in February and handed over data on 250 accounts to avoid prosecution. It agreed in August to turn over data on another 4,450 clients sought by the IRS. Another 14,700 U.S. taxpayers voluntarily disclosed offshore bank accounts to the IRS last year,” notes BusinessWeek.
Source: BusinessWeek, Jan. 4.
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I’d like to offer the proposition that this is not a setback at all. I, for one, believe that whistleblowers should be held to the exact same standard as those they blow the whistle on, not rewarded for ratting out their friends. If they choose to uphold accountability, they must be held accountable themselves as well. Only in this way is the honor of the “informant” upheld, as they set a good example for others to uphold, regardless of the consequences.
I agree, Josh, that all those miscreants in this case should serve some time, but why did Birkenfeld get a stiffer sentence than the UBS execs whose company bought their way into lighter sentences ? Sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, but there were some pretty guilty geese there who came up virtually sauceless.