Professor Ventry Comments for Bloomberg BNA on False Claim Acts

Professor Dennis Ventry commented for Bloomberg BNA on state False Claim Acts that provide monetary incentives to knowledgeable insiders for reporting tax fraud perpetrated against state and local governments, and that, furthermore, protect whistleblowers from retaliation by current or future employers.

Such laws have been criticized by some taxpayer groups as "bounty programs" and "vigilante" enforcement. However, as Ventry pointed out in his commentary to Bloomberg, false claims statutes that permit tax claims contain standards of culpability that are already imposed on taxpayers by the Internal Revenue Code, and that include thresholds and limits on claims that have the result of setting a high bar for bringing qui tam actions under the statutes. In addition, the overwhelming majority of whistleblowers exhaust internal reporting alternatives within their organizations before, if ever, reporting out a company's unlawful activity to state or local law enforcement or to federal or state whistleblower programs.

Professor Ventry is an expert in tax policy and legal ethics. His research interests include tax expenditure analysis, family taxation, professional responsibility and standards of care, tax filing and administration, tax compliance, public finance, and tax and legal history. In addition, he was recently added as a co-author on the casebook, Federal Income Taxation with Paul McDaniel, Martin McMahon, Jr., and Daniel L. Simmons.