At the request of members of Congress Jan Schakowsky and Lori Trahan, the Government Accountability office (GAO) researched and, on March 3, released a report on select government whistleblower programs.¹ The agency examined employer practices that impact whistleblowing; the incentives and protections available to whistleblowers; and, the challenges and benefits the SEC and IRS face in operating their programs. Importantly, the GAO’s analysis turns on two simple questions of trust: Do employees trust their employers to act honorably; and do whistleblowers trust the government to protect them?

Both the IRS and SEC provide significant financial incentives for individuals to come forward and report violations of the law. Since its inception in 2007, the IRS whistleblower program has awarded more than $1.4 billion to tipsters. Its largest payout was $263 million in 2024, a matter on which Outten & Golden represented the lead whistleblower in connection with the retaliation aspects of this record-setting case. The SEC whistleblower program, established in 2010 under Dodd-Frank, has paid eligible whistleblowers more than $2.2 billion, with a record award of $279 million paid to a single whistleblower in 2023.

As much as government whistleblower awards may incentivize reporting misconduct, employment practices can go a long way to empower or silence a prospective truthteller. The federal agencies told the GAO that employees’ understanding and “awareness of reporting channels and their trust in the anonymity or confidentiality of the channels” factor into the decision to come forward.

The GAO went a step further to probe employers’ use of confidentiality, non-disparagement and separation agreements to silence prospective whistleblowers. While the Congress gave the SEC authority to pursue enforcement actions against employers who retaliate against whistleblowers, as the GAO report points out, “even when NDAs are not legally enforceable and do not prohibit an employee from bringing forward information, they may have a chilling effect.”

The GAO report provided a bird’s eye view of the anti-retaliation provisions available under both the SEC and IRS programs. In addition to the ability to file anonymously, both programs offer significant employment protections including:

• IRS Program: Employee whistleblowers who experience retaliatory conduct such as firing, demotion, discrimination or harassment, are entitled to reinstatement, double back pay with interest, compensation for emotional or reputational harm, and attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. IRS whistleblowers who suffer retaliation cannot be forced into arbitration, even if they signed an otherwise valid arbitration agreement. Most important, employment protections extend to employees who report both internally to their company and externally to the IRS.
• SEC Program: Individuals who report directly to the SEC receive significant employment protections including reinstatement, double back pay with interest, and attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. Unlike the IRS program, however, SEC whistleblowers’ retaliation claims are subject to arbitration agreements, and SEC whistleblower protections are only triggered when the employee files a complaint with the Commission.

While whistleblower programs have helped government agencies to detect and prosecute significant violations of the law, administering a whistleblower program is no small task, the report noted. In FY2025, the SEC received approximately 27,000 tips, and in FY2024², the IRS received nearly 15,000. The vetting process requires significant resources and careful triage, particularly when tips involve complex financial and regulatory issues. Unfortunately, these agencies are extremely short-staffed, having reduced their headcount by 17-25% last year. At the SEC Enforcement Division, the reduction in staff and the massive number of tips mean that whistleblowers with actionable information need to present their information as clearly and effectively as possible to demonstrate to enforcement staff that claims merit the agency’s attention.

For all stakeholders—policymakers, regulators, whistleblowers, employers and employees—the report offers a clear message: Corporate culture plays a decisive role in whether employees feel safe raising concerns. And, as the GAO report added, “SEC officials told us they believe that cultural change toward increased compliance is created when businesses know someone may be willing to offer or provide information.”

¹ The GAO analyzed whistleblower programs at the SEC, IRS, FTC, and OSHA. For the purposes of this article, we focus exclusively on its findings relative to the SEC and IRS whistleblower programs.

² As of this writing, the IRS has not released the number of tips it received in FY2025.