Criminal Tax Forum

[Anonymous User]

Interested to hear anyone's insight/experience about the field of criminal tax. A quick search shows very little forum activity about the discussion of ways to enter this field, what kind of jobs are available, etc., except a couple resources I found that basically say it's a black box. If someone has a thread where this is discussed in detail handy, that'd be great.

Anyone on TLS do criminal tax on a regular basis? On rare occasion? Ever? It strikes me a niche field; do you focus only on this, or are criminal matters just a part of a greater breadth of assignments? Do you work at the DOJ/IRS? Private sector?

Also appreciate any info about getting into DOJ Tax/IRS' crim division, especially with regards to the experience they look for in seasoned attorneys. I imagine new graduates are simply placed in these divisions/departments based on expressed interest and coursework, but I'd be really curious to hear of anyone who's gone from private sector tax work to government crim. tax positions and what their career trajectory looked like.

To the extent it is helpful/relevant: I graduated top 1/3 from a T2, got a tax LLM immediately after, and have been working in the private sector (Big 4 - M&A - major market) for a couple years. I created this thread to gather info about potential exit options down the road (and to figure out if my "dream" of working for the feds in a criminal tax position is simply out of reach).

tl;dr: hoping to go Big 4 --> ??? --> big fed, wondering how realistic it is

[Anonymous User]

I don't have any personal experience with this area of the law but my legal writing professor was an AUSA with DOJ criminal tax division. She was a t-14 grad who clerked with a Virginia Supreme Court justice and then joined the DOJ soon after. I don't believe she had any prior tax experience.

[Anonymous User]

Prof of mine at my Tax LLM went from JD > LLM > Big 4 > DOJ Criminal tax.

Obviously YMMV, but I've heard of it happening at least twice.

[nealric]

No direct experience, but it’s an ultra niche. Criminal tax prosecutions- especially those against people with resources to pay a private defense attorney- are exceedingly rare. Other than that, you are looking at working for the federal government.

It’s really more of a subset of white collar criminal work than a tax practice. The standard for a criminal tax prosecution is such that there’s rarely a legitimate technicial tax argument involved. The arguments tend to revolve around facts and intent.