Disclaimer

Published by The Click Lab Agency LLC. October 2026.

Read this before you use a number from the calculator or a sentence from a guide to decide whether to report. The rules below are the limits on what this site is.

We are not a law firm, and this is not legal advice

whistleblowerawardcalc.com is published by The Click Lab Agency LLC. The Click Lab is not a law firm. No one who writes or maintains this site is acting as your lawyer. The calculator, the guides, the case-type summaries, the FAQ, the methodology, and the worked examples are general educational material about public whistleblower programs. They are not legal advice, tax advice, or financial advice, and they are not a recommendation to file or not to file.

Whistleblower statutes are specific. Whether information is “original,” whether a report was “voluntary,” whether the False Claims Act public-disclosure bar or first-to-file bar applies, whether a compliance officer is eligible, and whether an internal report preserved a submission date are questions about particular facts. A page that explains the rule in the abstract is not an answer to those questions for you.

No attorney-client relationship

Reading the site, running the calculator, or emailing hey@theclicklab.agency does not create an attorney-client relationship with The Click Lab or with anyone associated with the site. There is no one here to retain. We do not accept clients, and we do not refer cases.

Do not send the facts of a possible violation to that inbox. An email to us is not a privileged communication, it is not a filing with the SEC, the CFTC, the IRS, FinCEN, or the Department of Justice, and it does not stop a deadline. If you need a lawyer, hire one yourself. A state bar association’s lawyer referral service is a neutral place to start; the American Bar Association lists those services on its Hire a Lawyer page. That directory is not our referral network.

Estimates only

The calculator multiplies a dollar amount you supply by a percentage band taken from the statute for the program you select, then moves inside the band based on the contribution and cooperation answers you select. That is the whole model. The methodology page writes down each band and each adjustment.

• SEC and CFTC awards, when the sanctions collected exceed $1 million, fall between 10% and 30% under 15 U.S.C. §78u-6 and 7 U.S.C. §26.
• IRS awards under 26 U.S.C. §7623(b) fall between 15% and 30% of collected proceeds when the statutory thresholds are met. Below those thresholds the award is discretionary. The calculator shows that split. It does not know whether the IRS will pay.
• A False Claims Act relator’s share is 15–25% if the government intervenes and 25–30% if it does not, under 31 U.S.C. §3730(d). The calculator asks which of those happened. It does not predict which one will.

The figure is an order-of-magnitude illustration for a case that has already succeeded and in which the government has collected the amount you typed. It is not an appraisal of a claim, not a settlement value, and not the amount an agency or a court will award. Most submissions never produce a collected sanction, and an award is paid only on money actually collected. A judgment against a defendant who cannot pay is not an award.

The tool also does not apply the facts that often move a real percentage: the whistleblower’s own role in the violation, unreasonable delay, interference with internal compliance, a second whistleblower on the same matter, related actions by another agency, attorney’s fees, or income tax. Those can change the dollars by more than the band the calculator shows.

The agencies decide

Eligibility, the percentage, and payment are decided by the SEC Office of the Whistleblower, the CFTC, the IRS Whistleblower Office, FinCEN, the Department of Justice, or a court, under the statutes those offices administer. This site has no role in that process and no information about pending investigations. Links to those offices, on the homepage section Where to get help, are there so you can go to the filing page yourself.

Retaliation and taxes are separate questions

Anti-retaliation rights under Dodd-Frank §21F(h), Sarbanes-Oxley §806, and 31 U.S.C. §3730(h) are not the same as an award, and they have their own procedures and deadlines. The calculator does not measure them. Awards are generally taxable income. How 26 U.S.C. §62(a)(21) treats attorney’s fees in a particular year is a tax question for a tax adviser, not a result this site produces.

Sources can move

We link statutes, rules, and agency pages so you can read them. Those links were checked when they were added. A government site can move a page, and Congress or an agency can amend a rule, after the “last reviewed” line on a guide. If you find a citation that no longer matches the source, tell us through the contact page. Until a page is corrected, rely on the statute and the agency, not on our summary.

No promise of an outcome

We do not promise that information you have is eligible, that an agency will investigate, that you will receive any percentage inside the statutory band, or that a lawyer will take a case. Past awards mentioned on the site, including large SEC and IRS awards reported by those agencies, are examples of what those programs have paid in other matters. They are not a base rate for a new tip.