Former U.S. tax officials urged the Justice Department not to dismantle its tax division in an agency-wide reorganization, warning that such a move would hobble enforcement.
More than 60 lawyers wrote Wednesday in response to a
"Dismantling the tax division would do a grave disservice to tax administration by destroying consistent and competent application of our tax laws," the lawyers wrote. Many of them served in top posts at the tax division and the Internal Revenue Service.
The
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the letter.
The tax division's 350 or so lawyers work in 14 civil, criminal and appellate sections and support the IRS in collecting taxes and prosecuting fraud. They work closely with the 93 U.S. attorney's offices across the country and approve all tax prosecutions.
But the division is smaller than several others at the Justice Department and hasn't had a Senate-approved leader for more than a decade. The IRS had cut back on tax enforcement cases for years, and Trump vowed to reverse hiring increases backed by former president Joe Biden.
Division lawyers pursue a wide range of cases, including multibillion-dollar disputes like one involving
"The tax division is successful in carrying out this difficult and diverse mission because of principles it is designed around and fosters: technical competence, centralized leadership and collaboration," the tax experts told Blanche in the letter. They "regularly litigate cases against the nation's best-trained and best-funded private sector tax lawyers."
Many of those lawyers signed the letter, including former IRS commissioner Charles Rettig, former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and Michael Desmond, a former IRS chief counsel.
