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	Tax Whistleblower receives $11.6 Million Dollar Award by Whistleblowers Legal Defense Fund, agencies USA   31 August 2015   Attorneys Stephen Kohn and Dean Zerbe are pleased to announce that a joint client – who wishes to remain anonymous – received a whistleblower award under the new IRS whistleblower award program of $11.6 million dollars.   “We greatly appreciate the IRS recognizing the work of this whistleblower and for making this significant, major award. We commend the IRS for this fair and equitable determination of the whistleblower’s award amount and percentage. The whistleblower’s work translated into tens of millions of dollars recovered by the US Treasury,” said Kohn and Zerbe.   Stephen Kohn of the law firm of Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto (KKC) stated: “The good news is the IRS Whistleblower Office continues to show a willingness to make major awards to individuals who come forward and speak out against tax evasion. There is no question that whistleblowers need to be patient – but today’s award is an important step in bolstering confidence in the IRS whistleblower program.   There are still steps and hurdles for the IRS whistleblower program – but this is an important day for the continued success of the IRS whistleblower program. We are also encouraged by the IRS’s commitment to honor the complete confidentiality of whistleblower’s who want to remain anonymous and who understand that the revelation of their identity would have catastrophic impact on their lives and careers.”   Dean Zerbe of the law firm of Zerbe, Fingeret, Frank & Jadav (ZFF&J) stated: “Today’s award shows the IRS recognizes that the whistleblower program is a key part of IRS efforts to go after tax fraud and tax evasion.   However, the IRS is only scratching the surface of the potential role whistleblowers can play in collecting tax from big-time tax cheats. The IRS has a strong interest in hearing from – and rewarding — whistleblowers who know about tax cheats.   From conversations I have had with senior IRS officials, the IRS is especially interested in hearing from whistleblowers who know details about the latest corporate tax shelters as well as informed whistleblowers who have knowledge about US taxpayers with illegal offshore accounts around the world – especially Hong Kong, Singapore and Central America.“   Washington, D.C. June 15, 2015   National Whistleblower Center defends SEC Whistleblower Program after attack on Commission Chair   In a letter sent to President Obama, the National Whistleblower Center responded to a growing attack on the Chair of the Securities Exchange Commission. The National Whistleblower Center strongly praised the SEC''s new whistleblower program, and warned that efforts to ensure corporate transparency and accountability would be stifled if the President removed Chair White from her position.   The National Whistleblower Center pointed out the important SEC ruling outlawing restrictive corporate nondisclosure agreements as an example of the important whistleblower protection rulings made by the Commission under its current Chair.   National Whistleblower Center Executive Director Stephen M. Kohn wrote:   "To suggest at this critical time the removal of the Chair of the SEC, who had the foresight and courage to take on outrageous corporate practices and to support whistleblowers, in light of the apathy and inaction of other agencies, would be a blow to transparency, and a grave set back to the government’s ability to fight financial corruption and effectively use insider information to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable."   The National Whistleblower Center played a major role in ensuring that Dodd-Frank Act contained provisions protecting employees from retaliation and that the SEC''s whistleblower reward program was effectively implemented by the Commission. Our letter was sent to ensure that the progress made by the Commission bolstering its whistleblower program would not be undermined by efforts to have Chair White fired.   http://www.whistleblowers.org/ http://www.taxjustice.net/ http://business-humanrights.org/en/tax-avoidance-0/ http://www.cesr.org/article.php?id=1726 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/Fiscalandtaxpolicy2014.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx http://www.ibanet.org/Human_Rights_Institute/TaskForce_IllicitFinancialFlows_Poverty_HumanRights.aspx   http://academicsstand.org/2014/06/press-release-un-goals-should-do-more-to-curb-tax-dodging-that-has-cost-poor-countries-trillions/ http://academicsstand.org/2014/09/experts-thousands-from-around-the-world-call-on-ban-to-put-an-end-to-tax-abuse/ http://academicsstand.org/2014/09/policy-options-for-addressing-illicit-financial-flows-results-from-a-delphi-study/   http://www.actionaid.org.uk/news-and-views/global-plans-to-crack-down-on-tax-avoidance-leave-the-worlds-poorest-countries-out-in http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/library/tackling-tax-and-saving-lives-children-tax-and-financing-development http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blogs/15-01-23-why-oxfam-calling-world-tax-summit http://www.oxfam.org/en/explore/issues/inequality-and-essential-services   http://www.rightingfinance.org/?p=977 http://www.cesr.org/article.php?id=1622 http://www.cesr.org/downloads/fiscal.revolution.pdf http://www.icij.org/offshore http://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks http://www.gfintegrity.org/need-clear-sdg-target-illicit-financial-flows/ http://www.world-psi.org/en/billions-disappearing-through-tax-evasion http://www.trust.org/item/20140226151645-jbwui/ http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf Visit the related web page
	List of Syrian war crimes suspects handed to ICC: by former prosecutor by Reuters   June 2014   Syrian President Bashar al-Assad tops a list of 20 sample war crimes indictments of government officials and rebels drafted by experts for prosecution someday, a former international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday.   The list has been handed to the International Criminal Court (ICC), citing for each incident a specific violation of the Rome statute under which a suspect could be charged, according to David Crane, an ex-chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and now head of the Syria Accountability Project.   A separate team of U.N. investigators has drawn up four confidential lists of war crimes suspects on all sides in Syria, but declined to reveal any names.   Crane said the list compiled by his expert group included members of Syria"s military and political elite plus Islamist rebel groups ISIS and al-Nusra Front, although he gave no names beyond Assad.   "We have about 20 indictments of those who bear the greatest responsibility. This is a neutral effort. We"re not just going after Assad and his henchman, we are actually documenting all incidents on both sides," Crane told Reuters.   He was speaking after taking part in a panel discussion about torture and other crimes committed in detention centers during Syria"s civil war, which began with peaceful anti-Assad demonstrations in March 2011.   Images taken by a Syrian military police photographer codenamed Caesar, published in January, supplied "clear evidence" showing the systematic torture and killing of about 11,000 detainees in conditions that evoked Nazi death camps, former prosecutors including Crane have said.   "We rarely get this type of evidence, most of it is circumstantial," Crane said of the 55,000 photographs of bodies, many with gouged-out eyes and bearing signs of starvation.   "Make no mistake about it, these photographs could not be faked. This takes responsibility for what happened up the ladder of responsibility. It is not an act of a maverick colonel or a mad major, this is government policy," said Sir Desmond de Silva, co-author of an analysis of the "Caesar" photos and another former Sierra Leone chief prosecutor, told the panel.   A six-week offensive by ISIS against rival Islamists in eastern Syria has killed 600 fighters and driven 130,000 people from their homes, a London-based monitoring group said on Tuesday.   Crane, an American professor at Syracuse University College of Law in New York, launched its Syria Accountability Project in 2011 to document war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides in Syria"s conflict.   It now has 1,400 pages of credible allegations, with the date, place and unit suspected of committing crimes, he said.   "At the beginning, 90 percent of the violations were Assad; it"s now 50-50 (percent)," Crane said, referring to crimes committed by rebel forces fighting to topple the Syrian leader.   Last month, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity.   De Silva said that if the Council remained blocked on the matter, a tribunal on Syria could be set up if more than two countries entered into a treaty. "It may in fact be the only realistic course that can be taken. What we can"t have is international justice stalled in its tracks."
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