What you can do about double-dip promoters

Let’s say you’re tired of being pitched by the promoters of abusive tax shelters like the Wellness/SIMERP/WIMPER double-dip. What can you really do about it?

More than you may think. The IRS has online tools to refer these programs, and not today I’m going to make sure you know about it!

Form 14242, Report Suspected Abusive Tax Promotions or Preparers, has a digital submission tool. No printing, no fax, no envelope. It routes to the Lead Development Center inside the Office of Promoter Investigations, the unit built for this category.

You can submit it anonymously. You do not have to be a participant, a client, or a party to the arrangement.

The IRS asks for two things worth reading before you file. Specific and credible information. And in its own words, no AI-generated, unsupported, or purely speculative reports. Send the marketing materials. A sales deck describing a payroll tax result is evidence the Service cannot get any other way.

Form 14242 carries no award. Form 211 is the whistleblower claim, a different submission requiring your identity and a signature under penalty of perjury. Anonymous reports do not qualify for an award. Choose deliberately.

Where these go. The LDC follows up on each referral and routes cases for further action, including to Criminal Investigation. Remedies include injunctions, monetary penalties, criminal prosecution, and referral to the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Whether a specific program belongs in that form is a judgment for you and your own counsel with the documents in front of you.

Declining to place something protects your client. Reporting it to the IRS can protect hundreds more. And get them out of your inbox, off your calendar, and maybe into a federal prison.

Both forms linked in the comments.