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Staff Profile

Kathryn Keneally

Kathryn Keneally was sworn in as the Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division on April 6, 2012 and served until June 5, 2014.

The Tax Division has over 350 attorneys dedicated to the enforcement of the nation's tax laws. Working closely with the nation's 94 U.S. Attorney's Offices, Tax Division attorneys are responsible for most affirmative and defensive civil litigation arising under the internal revenue laws in federal district and bankruptcy courts and in state courts, and for handling or supervising most federal criminal tax prosecutions.

Before joining the Department of Justice, Ms. Keneally was a partner in the New York office of the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP. For over twenty-five years, she has represented individuals and businesses before the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice in criminal and civil tax cases, appeared and tried cases in the federal district and appellate courts and in the U.S. Tax Court. She has served as the chair of the ABA Section of Taxation's Committees on Civil and Criminal Tax Penalties and Standards of Tax Practice, and until recently was a vice chair of the Section of Taxation. Ms. Keneally is a prolific author who formerly co-authored a column on IRS Practice in the Journal of Tax Practice and Procedure. She has also served on the Practitioners' Advisory Group to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Ms. Keneally began her legal career in 1982 as the law clerk for the Honorable Edward R. Neaher, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York. She received a B.S. in 1979 from Cornell University, a J.D., magna cum laude, in 1982 from Fordham Law School, and an LL.M. in Taxation in 1993 from New York University School of Law.

Updated December 3, 2020