Play of the Day: Another Trump Administration Plan to Wreck the Tax Division (4/22/25; 4/23/25)

Recognizing that it had not thought through its plan to disperse DOJ Tax Division lawyers to USAOs around the country, DOJ is now floating another possibility to weaken the Tax Division. According to Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall, DOJ Scraps Plan to Shutter Tax Division (Talking Points Memo 4/21/25), here:

          Division personnel were informed this evening that that plan has been shelved in favor of a new plan. Under this new reorganization plan the Tax Division’s criminal side would be placed within the Criminal Division and the civil side within the Civil Division. So there’s an element of institutional demotion. But these two parts of the Tax Division would remain more or less intact within these new homes, as I understand it. It’s still a major change but dramatically different than the original reorganization plan which I reported on April 8th. It’s not clear yet based on tonight’s email to Tax Division staff whether this means there will no longer be a “Tax Division” within the DOJ. It appears not. But under this new plan it would be more a matter of reorganizing the org chart than actually cutting the operational units and personnel.

I am a believer in not trying to fix something that is not broken. Given its role in the tax system, DOJ Tax was not broken. Hence any such major reorganization is simply trying to give the appearance that the Trump Administration is doing something, when in fact that something is counterproductive.

That does not mean that some improvements cannot be made in the Tax Division. I am sure that organizational tweaks can be made. But such “solutions” as have been floated are not organizational tweaks. They appear rather as disruptive and decreased effectiveness bludgeons.

The balance of this post is my editorial comment, so some may want to stop reading here.

I have been scratching my head to try and figure out why the Trump Administration has fixated on the Tax Division. Perhaps, disruption and decreased effectiveness is the goal, just as it is with the chaos the Trump Administration has imposed at the IRS. I am sure the super-wealthy would prefer decreased tax enforcement effectiveness, and after all Trump dances to their tune. Perhaps also, this disruption is because the Tax Division is the least politically influenced of all components of DOJ; that may be the “problem” the Trump Administration is trying to solve.

Under normal circumstances, I recommend that a good start could be the nomination of an Assistant Attorney General for Tax that was well respected in the tax community. There are surely conservative Republicans who would be honored to serve as AAG Tax. The problem with that recommendation is that Trump's preference is to appoint people who are not well-respected with respect to their particular appointed position. Think of the chaos at Defense and the IRS, where one Acting Commissioner was wholly unqualified and lasted just a few days and the person Trump nominated for the permanent position has expertise apparently only in auctioneering. See Political Thrashing Around Acting Commissioners and Commissioner of Internal Revenue (Federal Tax Procedure Blog 4/18/25; 4/19/25), here.

Trump's base may have elected him to wreck Government; if so, they are getting what they voted for.

Added 4/23/25 12:30pm:

I have received some thoughts on the Trump Administration's motive to wreck the Tax Division. Among the thoughts are:

• The Tax Division would have approved the initial reduced charging of Hunter Biden that created a political uproar from the conservatives (more or less Trumpians looking for political gain regardless of the facts and nonpolitical nature of that participation). As all who observe know, Trump hates Bidens, Joe and Hunter. So attempting to let Hunter off easy by approving lesser tax charges could be cause for Trumpian retribution against the Tax Division. (I have no inside insight as to the Tax Division’s participation; I would be stunned if the participation was politically motivated; perhaps someday a full accounting will be had on that.)
• The Tax Division approved the tax charges against Charles Kushner (the Jared’s father) ending in Charles Kushner pleading guilty to “assisting in the filing of false tax returns, retaliating against a cooperating witness and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.” The actual prosecution was led by the USAO DNJ, under USA Chris Christie. See here; and Wikipedia here (reporting Christie as saying  that “Kushner committed ‘one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes’ he prosecuted.") President Trump pardoned Charles Kushner and has nominated Charles Kushner, the convicted and pardoned felon, to be Ambassador to France.

If indeed, these or other such anecdotes are the reason for wrecking the Tax Division, then it is just another example of Trumpian retribution way out of proportion to the alleged provocation.