Dean Zerbe

Dean Zerbe served as Senior Counsel and Tax Counsel to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, from 2001 to 2008.

At Chairman Grassley’s direction, Dean was the counsel responsible for drafting the modern IRS whistleblower law, signed in 2006, which established the IRS Whistleblower Office and created a formal award program for tax whistleblowers. In short, Dean wrote the law that governs the IRS whistleblower office and its reward program.

Today, Dean represents a select group of tax whistleblowers, including the most successful whistleblower in U.S. history, Bradley Birkenfeld. Mr. Birkenfeld received an award of $104 million—26% of the $400 million in taxes recovered—after exposing tax fraud by UBS to the IRS. It remains the largest award ever made to an individual whistleblower by the United States government, and was among the very first awards issued under the IRS whistleblower law.

While Dean represents whistleblowers across a broad range of matters, he specializes in complex submissions. Whistleblowers also turn to him to navigate the IRS and the Tax Court, ensuring that prior submissions are properly reviewed and fully considered. Dean represents whistleblowers before the Tax Court and authored the National Whistleblower Center’s amicus brief in Insinga, a landmark case for the rights of tax whistleblowers.

Dean consults regularly with Congress and the IRS on the whistleblower program and has submitted extensive comments to the IRS on specific program matters. He is widely recognized in the press as a leading authority on the IRS whistleblower law, with commentary featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post, Tax Notes, BNA, Accounting Today, and CFO Magazine.

Dean holds an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University and a J.D. with high honors from George Mason University School of Law. Before joining the Senate Finance Committee, he practiced tax planning and tax controversy at Lionel Sawyer & Collins in Nevada. Earlier in his career, he held several positions in Congress, most notably as a staff assistant and investigator for Senator Grassley.