Interesting Article Featuring DOJ Tax Attorneys (Now Alumni) (1/11/26)

Alumni might be interested in this recent article: Jens Heycke, Tax Enforcers Are Actually the Good Guys (The Dispatch 1/6/26), here. The subtopic is: By cutting resources for prosecuting rich tax cheats, the Trump administration is leaving billions of dollars on the table.

Here is the most relevant excerpt for the Tax Division:

          In 2014, a group of Department of Justice Tax Division attorneys went to a Washington Nationals game, hoping to enjoy a night off watching baseball. But when a camera found them and the ballpark’s Jumbotron flashed “DOJ Tax Division,” the stadium booed them so loudly it rattled the ice cubes in their drinks.

          Few government functions provoke as much reflexive hostility as tax enforcement. This is not lost on the IRS. Its Washington headquarters appears on Google Maps under the obscure label “DC0022 Government Office,” as if anonymity might spare it from the public’s animus. It doesn’t. Nearly 80 percent of the reviews of the building on Constitution Avenue are one star, with comments like: “Horrible organization that needs to be shut down.”

          But here’s what those reviewers and the Nationals crowd missed: The same year those DOJ tax prosecutors got booed, they forced Credit Suisse to pay $2.6 billion for its role in assisting ultra-rich tax evaders. With one settlement, they recovered more than 20 times their annual budget. Meanwhile, the prosecutor who told me about the Nationals Park episode was spearheading another massive investigation. The case, which involved data encrypted into photographs, false-bottom briefcases, and custom-encrypted servers, was settled last month for more than $750 million.

Also, the following except may not be right in that the DOJ Tax Criminal attorneys were transferred to the Criminal Division:

          This year, the Trump administration dismantled the DOJ’s Tax Division, dispersing its attorneys and enforcement functions. The specialists who know how to chase money hidden offshore were relocated to regional U.S. Attorney offices, where they will be assigned to other tasks. Many of the top tax prosecutors have resigned.

Also, I recommend that those with time and interest browse the comments to the article.

Heycke also authored Death, Taxes, and Turduckens: Unraveling History’s Biggest Tax Heist And the Broken System That Enabled It (2025), Amazon here, about the Brockman tax fraud, prosecution, and death avoiding conviction. For Federal Tax Crimes Blog posts on Brockman, see here.

 

Hubbert Article on Tax Division Demise (10/24/25)

David Hubbert, for AAG Tax, has written a thoughtful article for Blomberg: David Hubbert, What to Watch for in the Wake of the Tax Division’s Demise (BloombergLaw Tax Management Memo 10/24/25), here. All of it is good, so I don’t try to summarize it.

Karen Kelly Article on Federal Tax Prosecutions Before and After Department of Justice Tax Division Is Eliminated (10/19/25)

I point DOJ Tax Alumni to Karen Kelly and Caroline Rule’s article titled Federal Tax Prosecutions Before and After Department of Justice Tax Division Is Eliminated (White Collar Crime Litigation 9/22/25), here. Kelly was formerly a leader in the Tax Division before its demise at the behest of the Trump Administration. Kelly is now with Kostelanetz where Caroline Rule is a partner. Caroline Rule is a major force in tax crimes.

I have been trying to determine how the DOJ Tax functions would be folded into the DOJ Civil and Criminal Divisions, respectively. The article says:

According to the reorganization, the Civil Tax Division attorneys and the Criminal Tax Division attorneys will be relocated from the Tax Division into their respective components  at the DOJ: the DOJ Civil Division and the DOJ Criminal Division. There will then be a separate tax section within each division. Within the Civil Division, the tax attorneys will be renamed the Tax Litigation Section, which will include the six geographical Civil Trial Sections, 1 the Court of Federal Claims unit, the Office of Review, and the Appellate unit. On the criminal tax side, the attorneys will be moved into the Tax Section of the Criminal Division, which will include the three geographical regions and the Criminal Appeal unit. At least initially, the criminal attorneys will continue to be organized by geographic regions within the Tax Section. Presently, the regions are Northern Criminal Enforcement Section, Southern Criminal Enforcement Section, and Western Criminal Enforcement Section.

I infer that the pyramid structures in both DOJ Tax Civil and Criminal will be moved into the DOJ Civil and Criminal Sections, respectively. Presumably, some of the top level DOJ Tax Civil and Criminal Sections functions will be thinned out or eliminated, but some type of pyramid structure will remain. The basic work functions to line level attorneys will remain the same.

I await an org chart from the DOJ Civil and Criminal Divisions to get a better fix on this.

Update on Demise of Tax Division (9/28/25)

The Tax Division is no more (except as its residue now resides in the DOJ Civil and Criminal Sections). See Francesca Ugolini, A Eulogy for the Tax Division, (Tax Notes 9/23/25), here; and Nathan Richman, Dismantling of Justice Department’s Tax Division Has Resumed (Tax Notes 9/26.25), here.

1. The main Tax Division web site has been taken down and now appears as an archive page here.

2. It is unclear how the organizational structures of the Civil and Criminal Divisions will change with the incorporation of the Tax Division functions. As of this posting, the web pages for the Civil and Criminal Divisions do not indicate anything about the reorganization.

3. I suspect that the line attorneys doing the litigation work will continue as before with no substantial disruption of their work.

4. There will have to be conforming changes to the Justice Manual and the Criminal Tax Manual. Similarly, there will have to be changes to the IRS’s IRM and other publications referring to the Tax Division. I presume that conforming changes will take some time and may occur piecemeal.

5. The Wikipedia Page, here, says it was last edited on August 17, 2025, but does not mention the reorganization and the information on the page is substantially out of date (e.g., the Division Executive is said to be David A. Hubbert, Acting Assistant Attorney General, who left that role in January 2025). See Deputy AAG Tax Hubbert Removed and Reassigned to Sanctuary City Program (Whatever That Is) (DOJ Tax Division Alumni Blog 2/7/25; 2/11/25), here.

Trump’s DOJ Eliminates the Tax Division—An Editorial Comment (6/26/25; 6/27/25)

Caveat: This is Jack Townsend’s extended editorial comment on the elimination of DOJ Tax Division. This is an opinion piece. Those who do not care about my opinion might want to focus their attention elsewhere.

I previously wrote on the DOJ budget request that included eliminating the Tax Division. DOJ 2026 Budget Reflects Reorganization Plan to Eliminate Tax Division and Spread Its Functions to Other Components (CIV and CRIM) (DOJ Tax Division Alumni Blog 6/17/25), here.

Trump and his minions (collectively Trump) want to (i) benefit real or perceived friends, (ii) punish real or perceived enemies, and (iii) punish anyone or group or agency that deters him from doing (i) or (ii). Trump’s list of friends (real or perceived) and enemies (real or perceived) can change often and depends upon his whim or grievances of the moment. (For the balance of his posting, I will just refer to friends or enemies, but the reference includes real or perceived.) But I think the throughline is that he really hates his enemies. And he has made clear that he intends to use DOJ to punish his enemies.

The Tax Division is the least political of DOJ Components. (I think even less political than the Solicitor General’s office, particularly after the Bob Jones case where the SG’s office through Larry Wallace, a career attorney in the SG’s office, showed true independence. See Larry Wallace of SG's Office and Footnote Fame Dies (DOJ Tax Division Alumni Blog 2/24/20), here)

Trump could have appointed an Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division and the next layer of Deputies who likely would bend the knee to Trump. (I’ll call this group Trump tax acolytes.) But Trump tax acolytes would have had some difficulty because, in my experience, they would face resistance in the Tax Division with a tradition of nonpartisanship and overall fairness in tax enforcement. In other words, the likelihood of resistance to Trump acolytes serving Trump (see items (i) and (ii) above) is much greater if the Tax Division remained a separate DOJ Component. And that same likelihood of resistance in the Tax Division as a separate Component would be true whoever holds the political reins of power--Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, or even a special category for Trump (for which there is a name but not appropriate for publication here; let’s just say it is not a term of endearment.)

DOJ 2026 Budget Reflects Reorganization Plan to Eliminate Tax Division and Spread Its Functions to Other Components (CIV and CRIM) (6/17/25)

The DOJ Fiscal Year 2026 Budget and Performance Summary, dated 6/13/25, here, reflects a reorganization eliminating the Tax Division and moving its functions to the Civil (Tax Branch) and Criminal Divisions. Much of the document is budget-speak that some policy-wonks may want to dig into, but for readers of this blog, the bottom line elimination of the Tax Division and transfer of its functions is the key point. Excerpts relevant to that key point are:

[*10: *20 of pdf]

• Eliminations.

    • Tax Division (TAX). TAX will be eliminated as a standalone component, with its civil enforcement work transferred to CIV and its criminal enforcement work being transferred to CRM. The FY 2025 operating plan allocated TAX’s remaining resources directly to the budgets for CIV and CRM; this is  also reflected in the FY 2026 request. The reorganization provides more oversight to the tax  enforcement function and more effectively distributes resources.

JAT Note: I infer that the "more oversight" may be the key here, because Trump and his minions have previously expressed unhappiness with the Tax Division, the least political DOJ Component, because it took action that Trump and his minions did not like and want more political control over the tax litigation. Of course, more political control of DOJ and its Components which Trump has ramped up may come back to haunt them later when a new administration comes in.

[*65: *77 of pdf]

[*69: *81 of pdf]

General Legal Activities
Criminal Division (CRM)

* * * *

[*70: *82 of pdf]

The Department of Justice has started a reorganization to improve its effectiveness in executing its mission. Included in this reorganization will be the integration of three new groups into the Criminal Division: the criminal portfolios of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit of the Civil Rights Division, and the criminal portfolios of the Tax Division.

      * * *