The number of criminal subpoenas issued by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance fell in the last decade, records obtained by the New York Daily News under the Freedom of Information Act show.
But the number of civil subpoenas soared in the same period, which may reflect a shift in priority or strategy by the tax department after a 2010 change in the state’s tax whistleblower law, a former deputy state tax commissioner said. The Legislature amended New York’s False Claims Act that year to allow private citizens to bring treble-damage false claims lawsuits against taxpayers that engaged in tax fraud or filed false returns knowingly, with some oversight by the attorney general’s office.
