What Did a DOJ Tax Division Trial Attorney Do? Inside the Federal Government’s Tax Litigation Arm

The title "DOJ Tax Division Trial Attorney" carries weight in legal circles, but most taxpayers have only a vague sense of what the job actually involved. For nearly 90 years, these were the lawyers the federal government sent into court to represent the United States in tax cases. They handled refund suits, lien foreclosures, injunction actions against tax shelter promoters, criminal tax prosecutions, and a long list of other matters that made up the federal tax docket. Understanding what Trial Attorneys actually did inside the Tax Division, and why that work was demanding and substantively rich, helps explain why former...