Dennis J. Ventry, Jr. (UC-Davis), Not Just Whistling Dixie: The Case for Tax Whistleblowers in the States, 59 Vill. L. Rev. ___ (2014):
This Article examines the successes and failures of current tax whistleblower regimes, with particular emphasis on the states. It considers and then refutes several popular arguments against permitting whistleblowers to submit tax claims, under either a state’s False Claims Act (FCA) or standalone statute, including: (i) whistleblower statutes have historically been used to uncover and prosecute fraudulent behavior, not mere noncompliance with the law; (ii) the “knowing” standard of liability under FCAs creates new liability on taxpayers in jurisdictions permitting false claims pertaining to tax; and (iii) tax law is more complex and uncertain than other areas of the law and therefore off limits to whistleblower actions.
Tanina Rostain (Georgetown) presents Confidence Games: Lawyers, Accountants, and the Tax Shelter Crisis (MIT Press, 2014) (with Milton C. Regan, Jr. (Georgetown)) at Duke today as part of its Tax Policy Seminar hosted by Lawrence Zelenak:
Futurology is alive and well, though futurologists are almost always wrong. Still we listen, yearning for salvation from our human condition. From predicting AI within 20 years to mass-starvation in the 1970s, those who foretell the future often come close to doomsday preachers Glass must be Half Full...