Use Form 3949-A to report alleged tax law violations by an individual, a business, or both.
Failure to report all your income can result in hefty penalties, fines, and interest, as well as jail time. Despite these penalties, the IRS estimates that the U.S. loses billion in unpaid taxes every year because of unreported income.
Report Suspected Tax Law Violations
Submit Form 3949-A, Information Referral onlinePDF if you suspect an individual or a business is not complying with the tax laws. We don't take tax law violation referrals over the phone. We will keep your identity confidential when you file a tax fraud report.
Not reporting cash income or payments received for contract work can lead to hefty fines and penalties from the Internal Revenue Service on top of the tax bill you owe. Purposeful evasion can even land you in jail, so get your tax situation straightened out as soon as possible, even if you are years behind.
This includes criminal fines, civil forfeitures, and violations of reporting requirements. In general, the IRS will pay an award of at least 15 percent, but not more than 30 percent of the proceeds collected attributable to the information submitted by the whistleblower.
You will report suspected fraud to the IRS by filling out a form. You can download these forms from the IRS website or order by calling 1-800-829-0433. You need to use the right form, which will depend on the violation you are reporting: Form 3949-A.
The program has offered monetary awards to whistleblowers who voluntarily expose tax law violations. Overall, the IRS has awarded whistleblowers over $1 billion based on the collection of over $6 billion in back taxes, interest, penalties, and criminal fines and sanctions.
Information statement matching: The IRS receives copies of income-reporting statements (such as forms 1099, W-2, K-1, etc.) sent to you. It then uses automated computer programs to match this information to your individual tax return to ensure the income reported on these statements is reported on your tax return.
The Short Answer: Yes. The IRS probably already knows about many of your financial accounts, and the IRS can get information on how much is there. But, in reality, the IRS rarely digs deeper into your bank and financial accounts unless you're being audited or the IRS is collecting back taxes from you.
IRS whistleblowers who provide information about tax fraud or tax underpayments to the Internal Revenue Service can do so confidentially and receive rewards.
Contact an IRS customer service representative to correct any agency errors by calling 800-829-1040. Customer service representatives are available Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time, unless otherwise noted (see telephone assistance for more information).
The caller can expect contact within 30-days from the date of receipt. Explain to the caller that they can expect contact within 30-days of the received date. The caller should be advised to expect correspondence within two weeks of the closing date. Never send a referral to an assistor after a case has been closed.
These penalties are calculated as a flat 20 percent of the net understatement of tax. You understate your tax if the tax shown on your return is less than the correct tax. The understatement is substantial if it is more than the larger of 10 percent of the correct tax or $5,000 for individuals.
Usually, if you're caring for a relative, you don't have a profit motive; rather you're doing it to help the relative. In this case, your mother wouldn't be subject to self-employment tax. However, she would need to report the payments as taxable income on Form 1040, Line 21.
Tax audit triggers: You didn't report all of your income. You took the home office deduction. You reported several years of business losses. You had unusually large business expenses.
Note that under a separate reporting requirement, banks and other financial institutions report cash purchases of cashier's checks, treasurer's checks and/or bank checks, bank drafts, traveler's checks and money orders with a face value of more than $10,000 by filing currency transaction reports.
Federal law requires a person to report cash transactions of more than $10,000 by filing IRS Form 8300PDF, Report of Cash Payments Over $10,000 Received in a Trade or Business.
Audit trends vary by taxpayer income. In recent years, IRS audited taxpayers with incomes below $25,000 and those with incomes of $500,000 or more at higher-than-average rates. But, audit rates have dropped for all income levels—with audit rates decreasing the most for taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 or more.
What is the chance of being audited by the IRS? The overall audit rate is extremely low, less than 1% of all tax returns get examined within a year.
If the IRS seeks proof of your business expenses and you don't have receipts, you can create a report on your expenses. As a result of the Cohan Rule, business owners can claim expenses without receipts, provided the expenses are reasonable for that business.
Under the whistleblower protection legislation, an eligible whistleblower can be someone who is or was: An officer or employee of the charity. An individual or an employee of a person that supplies services or goods to the entity (including volunteers) An individual who is an associate of the entity.
According to the SEC's FY 2020 Division of Enforcement Report, the median time for the SEC to open an investigation and file was 21.6 months (and the average was 24.1 months, second-fastest in the last five years, behind only 2019).
Use Form 3949-A to report alleged tax law violations by an individual, a business, or both. CAUTION: DO NOT USE Form 3949-A: o If you suspect your identity was stolen. Use Form 14039. Follow “Instructions for Submitting this Form” on Page 2 of Form 14039. o To report suspected misconduct by your tax return preparer.