Following up on last week's post, IRS Awards $104 Million to UBS Tax Whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld: Wall Street Journal: Bradley Birkenfeld, Hero of Tax Reform, by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.:
Is there anything redeeming to be found in the adventures of Bradley
Birkenfeld, the UBS whistleblower whose tale is sordidness piled on
sordidness? Mr. Birkenfeld is the soon-to-be-paroled felon on whom this week was
bestowed a $104 million IRS bounty for exposing the activities of his
former employer, the giant Swiss bank UBS, in helping Americans dodge
U.S. taxes.Mr. Birkenfeld got his reward not because he discovered tax evasion
going on at UBS. He was a prime instigator of it, trolling the watering
holes of North America for the rich and nervous. …The author of the whistleblower law that so benefited Mr. Birkenfeld
was none other than prairie populist Sen. Charles Grassley, who issued a
statement this week: "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." … Need we add that Mr. Grassley's longtime aide, who actually drafted
the whistleblower law, now represents Mr. Birkenfeld and stands to
collect an interesting percentage of the award Mr. Grassley so
obligingly applauds? …Even Mr. Grassley knows a tax code with flatter rates and less
riddled with loopholes is objectively better policy. A flatter tax
system encourages compliance and reduces the payoff to costly and
unproductive cheating. It also reduces the payoff to Capitol Hill's
corrupting trade in tax favors. Mr. Grassley, when he wasn't issuing
press releases denouncing what he was pleased to call the loopholes of
others, was guardian of one of the most egregious handouts of all, the
giant tax break for ethanol.You want your senses assaulted by fewer grotesqueries like the two
careers of Mr. Birkenfeld or the one career of Sen. Grassley? Tax
reform—an elixir for much of what currently ails America—is your
solution here too.
Update: Going Concern, In Case You Missed It: IRS Whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld Is Fully Aware of His Awesomeness
