I just learned that the Department of Justice has shelved its plan to essentially shutter the Department’s Tax Division. The plan had been to disperse the Division’s lawyers to U.S. Attorney’s Offices around the country and maintain a very small residual oversight office at Main Justice. This would satisfy, at least in the view of DOJ’s current political leadership, statutory requirements. But it would trigger big departures of lawyers unwilling to relocate around the country and dilute and dissipate institutional knowledge and organizational focus.
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.
