We try not to abuse your inbox but occasionally we receive requests that might be of interest to the community working in the tax procedure area. Today, we bring forward two separate matters.
Access to Tax Court Records
First, Peter Reilly, who blogs at Forbes where we occasionally blog, is interested in hearing from individuals interested in a discussion concerning public access to Tax Court documents and requested that we notify readers of PT. He is writing a “piece about the Tax Court’s lack of electronic transparency.” For those of you who have sought Tax Court records, you know that the Tax Court electronic docket does not have the same links that you would find on Pacer. The Tax Court has reasons for the way their electronic docket works which are rooted in privacy concerns for the parties who file petitions. Practitioners, and others wanting access to Tax Court records, have concerns about the ability to access the public records at the Court. Peter asked for our assistance it pointing people to him who have an interest in engaging in this debate. He can be reached at peterreillycpa@gmail.com
Tax Division of the Department of Justice
If you want to get a great start on learning tax procedure, it is hard to imagine a better place than the Tax Division. You would work with great lawyers while learning the ins and outs of tax litigation. Copied below is a message sent out by Dara Oliphant, Counsel, Office of Management and Administration at the Tax Division soliciting interested individuals to apply for an internship with them:
I am writing to encourage your students to consider applying for a volunteer legal internship with the DOJ Tax Division. The Tax Division represents the United States in courts across the country in a wide spectrum of interesting and cutting-edge cases involving issues arising under federal tax law. Our Division is ranked as “one of the best places to work” in government by the Partnership for Public Service. We seek to create a work environment and organizational culture that reflect the diversity of American society and that foster the success of every employee by appreciating and building upon the skills, experiences, and uniqueness that each employee brings to the workplace. We also place a high value on diversity of experience and cultural perspective and encourage applications from all interested eligible candidates. More information about the Tax Division is available at: https://www.justice.gov/tax
Currently, the Tax Division is accepting applications from law students who wish to volunteer during the Summer, and the deadline is January 1, 2018. As set forth in the job announcement link – https://www.justice.gov/legal-careers/job/law-student-volunteer-summer-141 – we have approximately four summer volunteer positions available in Washington, DC and one in Dallas, TX.
(We are also accepting applications for students looking for internship positions for Fall 2018, and that deadline is May 1, 2018. I will send a follow-up with that announcement when it is posted. We generally hire between 13-16 volunteer interns during each academic semester.)
Comment Policy: While we all have years of experience as practitioners and attorneys, and while Keith and Les have taught for many years, we think our work is better when we generate input from others. That is one of the reasons we solicit guest posts (and also because of the time it takes to write what we think are high quality posts). Involvement from others makes our site better. That is why we have kept our site open to comments.
If you want to make a public comment, you must identify yourself (using your first and last name) and register by including your email. If you do not, we will remove your comment. In a comment, if you disagree with or intend to criticize someone (such as the poster, another commenter, a party or counsel in a case), you must do so in a respectful manner. We reserve the right to delete comments. If your comment is obnoxious, mean-spirited or violates our sense of decency we will remove the comment. While you have the right to say what you want, you do not have the right to say what you want on our blog.