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Maryland Tax Whistleblower Statute – File Anonymously with Whistleblower Counsel
Maryland residents who suspect others are committing tax fraud over $250,000should speak with a whistleblower lawyer to see if they’re eligible to receive a monetary reward under a new qui tam state law enacted June 1, 2021
Unlike laws that address tax cheats that have been on the books for years in New York and Illinois, and the law that was recently enacted in Washington, D.C., the new Maryland law does not allow whistleblowers to bring False Claims Act suits for tax fraud. Rather, the Maryland law is similar to the Whistleblower Programs run by the IRS and the SEC in which you need to file the Maryland tax whistleblower complaint through the regulatory agency.
Under Maryland’s new law, if the State Comptroller’s Office recovers money as a result of a whistleblower’s tip, the whistleblower is eligible to receive 15% to 30% of the recovery. The whistleblower can’t, however, bring a lawsuit to recover for the state.
Tips must be submitted by sworn affidavit, or anonymously through counsel. The tip must be original and material information, and cannot be “exclusively derived from an allegation made in a judicial or administrative hearing, in a government report, hearing, audit, or investigation or from the news media, unless the whistleblower is a source of the information.”
Rewards are available only where the state tax liability is at least $250,000, and the law only applies to individuals or joint filers whose income is at least $250,000 and businesses with annual gross receipts of at least $2,000,000.
The program is expected to be “open for business” on October 1, 2021. Talk with the whistleblower >attorneys at Brown, LLC by calling 877-561-0000 if you suspect federal tax fraud, or state tax fraud in Illinois, Maryland, New York, or Washington, D.C. to learn your rights