It seems J.P. Morgan Chase may have unfinished business with the IRS over a year after it paid more than $300 million to resolve regulators’ claims that the bank failed to explain to wealthy clients why it was steering them into its own funds.

While the bank said its actions were unintentional and promised to be more transparent moving forward, it did admit to disclosure lapses at the time of the settlement among securities and commodities regulators.  A whistleblower is now claiming, however, the misdeeds extended beyond a lack of disclosure. 

The whistleblower is claiming that a portion of clients’ money was in tax-advantaged pension funds potentially skirting IRS rules while favoring its own funds.      

The whistleblower is an unidentified former J.P. Morgan employee who started working with the Securities and Exchange Commission early on in the investigation.  The whistleblower filed a previously unreported claim to the IRS over this retirement funds issue, potentially leaving the bank on the hook for another sum of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax penalties.

HR experts explain the whistleblower is being represented by Dean Zerbe, and Zerbe’s client will remain out of the public.  Zerbe feels that it is the IRS’s duty to subject the bank to substantial bank penalties. Of course, the IRS does not have to move forward and endorse the whistleblower’s claim for any legal action.  There is no indication that the IRS is leaning either way at this time.