By Sarah N. Lynch and Jody Godoy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice has backed away from a plan to break up its Washington-based tax division and send prosecutors to offices throughout the country, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.
A new plan would house tax attorneys within the DOJ’s civil and criminal divisions, otherwise keeping intact the unit which specializes in enforcing the tax code. The initial plan to send tax attorneys to U.S. attorneys’ offices was part of a broader proposed shakeup at the DOJ first reported by Reuters in March.
The DOJ continues to evaluate how best to allocate its resources and no final decisions have been made, a DOJ official told Reuters on Monday.
The earlier plan had drawn criticism from dozens of former tax officials, including Rod Rosenstein, the second in command at the DOJ during the first Trump administration.
"If the goal is to increase efficiency and our return on investment, eliminating the Tax Division would be an epic failure," the officials wrote, saying that decentralizing the division would risk inconsistent application of tax law.
As part of President Donald Trump’s bid to drastically shrink the U.S. government, the DOJ has been eyeing plans to streamline various functions. A proposal to merge the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives met with criticism from advocacy groups.