Justice Department to Eliminate Tax Unit as Workforce Shrinks

The Justice Department plans to eliminate its tax division and transfer the enforcement work to the respective criminal and civil divisions as part of a broader reorganization of the department.

The plan is outlined in DOJ’s budget request to Congress for next fiscal year, which comes two weeks after the White House released its version. The proposal includes eliminating 5,093 positions across the department. About 4,500 employees at the DOJ have already accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program.

The tax division had a budget of $106.4 million in fiscal year 2025. The operating plan for this year already allocated the remaining resources of the tax division to the budgets for the civil and criminal units, according to the documents.

“The reorganization provides more oversight to the tax enforcement function and more effectively distributes resources,” the budget reads.

• The tax division had about 390 attorneys and 503 employees overall in 2024.
• DOJ is requesting 0.7% more in funding for the criminal division and 12.1% more for the civil division, though both divisions are set to slash the number of attorneys from this year.
• DOJ had proposed reassigning tax division attorneys to US Attorneys’ offices across the country, but that plan received blacklashfrom dozens of former DOJ and IRS officials who said it would be a “grave disservice to tax administration.”
• The department’s chief tax official resigned earlier this year rather than accept a forced transfer to a new unit.