But while Birkenfeld was confessing his own sins, he also provided testimony that allowed the Justice Department to punish his employer, forcing UBS to admit that it had allowed its clients to evade taxes by hiding their assets offshore. In February 2009, under a deferred prosecution agreement, the company agreed to pay $780 million in criminal fines for offering tax haven accounts for U.S. clients. UBS agreed to release data on almost 5,000 client accounts.
Birkenfeld's lawyers, Stephen M. Kohn and Dean A. Zerbe, of the Washington-based National Whistleblowers Center, said that because of Birkenfeld the IRS has been able to recover $5 billion in revenue from 33,000 U.S. citizens who have voluntarily disclosed their offshore accounts.
"The IRS sent 104 million messages to whistle-blowers around the world -- that there is now a safe and secure way to report tax fraud," said the National Whistleblowers Center in a statement. "The IRS also sent 104 million messages to banks around the world – stop enabling tax cheats or you will get caught."
