- A. Request by United States Attorney’s Office. A United States Attorney’s Office who concludes that the Government should not prosecute a particular tax matter must submit a written recommendation to the Tax Division for consideration. The Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, will then evaluate the matter and determine whether the matter should be prosecuted or declined. If the Assistant Attorney General determines that the matter should be prosecuted, the United States Attorney’s Office will be requested to proceed. If the United States Attorney’s Office declines to proceed, Criminal Enforcement Section personnel from the Tax Division will handle the matter. The United States Attorney’s Office must send the recommendation to the Chief of the appropriate Criminal Tax Enforcement Section sufficiently in advance of the expiration of the statute of limitations or any other deadlines to give the Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, sufficient time to consider the recommendation and to give Tax Division personnel sufficient time to prepare for prosecution.
- B. Grand Jury No Bill. Once a grand jury returns a no bill or otherwise acts on the merits in declining to return an indictment, the United States Attorney’s Office must not present the same matter (i.e., the same transaction or event and the same putative defendant) to another grand jury or present it again to the same grand jury without the prior approval of the Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division. Ordinarily, the Assistant Attorney General does not give that approval unless the Government finds additional or newly discovered evidence or there would be a clear miscarriage of justice if the Government did not make a second attempt to obtain an indictment.
[updated February 2018] [cited in JM 6-2.000; 6-4.244; 9-27.640]