Fraud-busting rewards top $2 billion

Last year, the federal government spent more than $2.5 trillion dollars. Under many of its programs, it is losing 10 percent to corporate fraud. Even using conservative estimates, the amount of fraud exceeds $150 billion each year. And guess who makes up the difference? You do.

The government catches only 1 percent of corporate crooks who defraud government agencies like the military, the post office, Medicare and Homeland Security. This means corporations steal over $150 billion from important government programs every year. That leaves taxpayers, like you and me, to make up the difference. Each of us pays at least an additional $500 per year in extra taxes because of corporate fraud against the government.

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Doing the math, Congress realized it would be well worth it to pay between 15 percent and 25 percent of what the government collects against cheating companies as a reward to private citizens who report fraud. Lawmakers authorized the Department of Justice to create the highly successful Whistleblower Reward Program.

When they learned of the program, many citizens become eager to get involved. They had been outraged by the corporate theft in the past, but didn't know what to do about it. Now, Congress had made it easy.

The government just reached a landmark. It has now paid out $2 billion in rewards to average citizens who have reported fraud. Since the reward program started, the Department of Justice has recovered more than $12.5 billion that it would not have otherwise obtained, netting taxpayers $10 billion back from cheating companies.

The Department of Justice considers the reward program a huge success and is prepared to pay out considerably more and larger rewards. Under the program, there is no limit to the amount of rewards paid, and there is no cap to the dollar amount paid to an individual. The reward is a formula based upon the size of the fraud case you report.

The average whistleblower reward is $1.5 million. The largest rewards in a case have topped $100 million. One day we will see a reward of $1 billion dollars! The Department of Justice is happy to pay these rewards, and the whistleblowers are happy to receive them. Whistleblowers are now responsible for one-half of all recoveries for fraud against the government. Not a bad return on an investment.

Recently, the IRS adopted its own whistleblower reward program. It hopes to be able to pay billions of dollars in rewards because it estimates that people are evading taxes by over $300 billion each year.

It's no surprise that fraud exists. Corporate greed has been around for a long time. But knowing it exists and reaching into your own pocket to pay $500 for it every year are two different things.

Isn't it time for you to get involved? Maybe you already know of a corporation that is cheating the government. Maybe you don't know of specific instance of fraud. But when the average reward is $1.5 million, it might be worth it to take a look around.

With nearly 10 percent of all government spending being lost every year, there are literally millions of opportunities for you to collect a reward.