(Law 360) The government was not required to give a bigger whistleblower award to a former auditor who helped the Internal Revenue Service recover $180,000 in taxes, the Federal Circuit said Tuesday, affirming a ruling that a lower court lacked authority to hear her case.
In an opinion, a three-judge panel said the regulations governing Suzanne Jean McCrory’s claim to a larger whistleblower award are not “money-mandating” because the underlying law makes awards discretionary for cases in which the proceeds are less than $2 million.
Therefore, the Court of Federal Claims properly dismissed McCrory’s complaint claiming she was owed at least 15% of the $180,000 in proceeds, as opposed to the 1% she was granted, under Internal Revenue Code Section 7623 , the panel said.
McCrory has filed 600 claims for whistleblower awards since 2014, according to the ruling. Prior to her case in the claims court, the U.S. Tax Courtrejected her request to review the award at issue, citing the $2 million threshold.
The case is McCrory v. U.S., case number 2025-1308, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
