The

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

Tax Division is responsible for the prosecution of both

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

and

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

cases arising under the

Internal Revenue Code The Internal Revenue Code (IRC), formally the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, is the domestic portion of federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 ...

and other tax laws of the United States. The Division began operation in 1934, under

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

Homer Stille Cummings Homer Stille Cummings (April 30, 1870 – September 10, 1956) was an American lawyer and politician who was the United States Attorney General from 1933 to 1939. He also was elected mayor of Stamford, Connecticut, three times before founding the ...

, who charged it with primary responsibility for supervising all federal litigation involving internal revenue (following an

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...

from

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

Responsibilities

The Tax Division works closely with public schools and corporations of the state and the Criminal Investigation Division and other units of the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

to develop and coordinate federal tax policy. Among the Division's duties are: *Participating in the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force **Working with the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

to promote corporate integrity **Pursuing criminal tax investigations and prosecutions of

corporate executive Corporate titles or business titles are given to corporate officers to show what duties and responsibilities they have in the organization. Such titles are used by publicly and privately held for-profit corporations, cooperatives, non-profit or ...

s *Handling criminal investigations and prosecutions of

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

financing cases *Fighting abusive and fraudulent tax promotions **Seeking civil injunctions against promoters of abusive tax schemes **Handling criminal prosecutions of major

tax fraud Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxp ...

promoters **Working with the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...

to combat

internet fraud Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Inte ...

schemes **Using both civil and criminal tools to put tax fraud promoters out of business *Enforcing IRS summonses for records of corporate tax shelters *Attacking the use of foreign bank accounts to evade taxes **Enforcing IRS

summons A summons (also known in England and Wales as a claim form and in the Australian state of New South Wales as a court attendance notice (CAN)) is a legal document issued by a court (a ''judicial summons'') or by an administrative agency of governme ...

es for records of offshore

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

transactions **Initiating criminal investigations of suspects in offshore tax evasion cases *Combating schemes that cheat the IRS through abuse of the bankruptcy system *Enhancing policy coordination between the Tax Division and the IRS

Current programs

In August 2013, the Justice Department announced their Swiss bank program, which "provides Swiss banks an opportunity to come forward, cooperate, disclose their illegal conduct, and be eligible for non-prosecution agreements -- or in egregious cases, deferred prosecution agreements." The offshore voluntary disclosure program is for individual taxpayer to come forward and pay owed taxes on undisclosed income. However, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson advocated changes to this program to encourage account holders of accounts with small balances to come forward.

Leadership

The current Acting Assistant Attorney General is David A. Hubbert, the division's incumbent Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) for Civil Trial Matters. On February 4, 2020, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

nominated Richard E. Zuckerman as Assistant Attorney General to head the Tax Division, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Zuckerman left the post on January 20, 2021. He was previously appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Matters of the Tax Division on December 18, 2017. He succeeded Caroline D. Ciraolo, former Acting Assistant Attorney General, who left the Tax Division in January 2017.

Organization

The head of the Tax Division is an Assistant Attorney General, who is appointed by the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

. The Assistant Attorney General is assisted by four Deputy Assistant Attorneys General, who are each career attorneys, who each oversee a different branch of the Tax Division's sections. *Assistant Attorney General for Tax Division **Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Policy and Planning ***Office of Legislation, Policy and Management ***Office of Training and Career Development ***Office of Management and Administration **Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Matters ***Northern Criminal Enforcement Section ***Southern Criminal Enforcement Section ***Western Criminal Enforcement Section ***Criminal Appeals and Tax Enforcement Policy Section **Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Review and Appellate ***Civil Appellate Section ***Office of Review **Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Matters ***Central Civil Trial Section ***Eastern Civil Trial Section ***Northern Civil Trial Section ***Southern Civil Trial Section ***Southwestern Civil Trial Section ***Western Civil Trial Section ***Court of Federal Claims Section

References

External links

*
USDOJ Tax Division Alumni Blog
{{authority control Tax Division Taxation in the United States