OtterBox has been accused in a federal lawsuit in Colorado of failing to pay federal import taxes on its popular China-manufactured cell-phone cases. The case was filed in 2011 but remained under seal until August 19, 2013. According to court filings, OtterBox had previously advised the government that it had broken the law by not paying enough customs duties and has moved to dismiss the whistleblower’s lawsuit on the basis of this “prior disclosure.
Senate Finance Committee Senior Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is pushing IRS-Commissioner Nominee John Koskinen to lead the IRS in better processing whistleblower claims. While there have been a number of whistleblowers who provided information on tax scofflaws, the payouts to these whistleblowers have been few and far between.
The SEC has awarded more than $14 million to a whistleblower whose information led to an SEC enforcement action that recovered substantial investor funds. This payment – the largest to date made by the SEC’s whistleblower program – comes from a separate fund previously established by the Dodd-Frank Act and does not reduce the amount paid to harmed investors.
A federal judge ordered South Carolina’s Tuomey Healthcare System to pay $277 million for violating laws that bar hospitals from paying doctors to refer Medicare patients for treatments. The ruling – a result of the denial of Tuomey’s post-trial motions and the granting of the government’s request to impose Stark Penalties and False Claims Act fines – is believed to be the largest of its kind against a community hospital in U.S.
In a ruling meant in part to keep the government from benefitting from its “apathetic conduct”, a New Mexico federal judge upheld a magistrate judge’s recommendation for sanctions against the government for failing to safeguard documents that may have aided Community Health Systems (CHS) in defending against a whistleblowers Medicaid claim.
Two years after the opening of the SEC’s whistleblower office, Division Head Sean McKessy provides an interview outlining the success of the program as well as the future direction of the program. In 2012 alone, the SEC received 3,001 whistleblower tips.
The United States announced a new program in cooperation with the Swiss government that allows Swiss banks not currently under criminal investigation to be eligible for non-prosecution agreements in exchange for their cooperation in investigating offshore tax evasion schemes.
The IRS recently named John Dalrymple as the new Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement. In that role Dalrymple will oversee four IRS operating divisions including Wage and Investment, Large Business & International, Small Business/Self-Employed and Tax Exempt and Government Entities.
A recent article in the New York Times discloses how an IV bag of saline solution, which costs at most $1 to manufacture, ends up costing hospital patients hundreds of dollars. In “How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater,” the author details charges to a group of individuals treated for food poisoning in upstate New York.
Imagimed, LLC and several of its former owners and staff physicians settled allegations of false claims with the US Attorney for the Northern District of New York. The false claims concerned Imagimed’s fraudulent practice of performing MRI’s with contrast dyes without direct supervision of a qualified physician. A physician is required to be present because of the risk of anaphylactic shock.
