The top position at the Treasury Department overseeing municipal finance tax issues is temporarily vacant following the departure of John Cross III.
Cross, who served as associate tax legislative counsel at the Office of Tax Policy until Friday, said in an email Wednesday that he resigned in order to move to Fairfield, Connecticut, to be closer to family.
Cross said he is also getting an apartment in lower Manhattan in Battery Park, which is within walking distance of the financial district.
“Beyond that, I haven’t decided about my future plans in public finance,” Cross said in an email to The Buyer Buyer.
“Treasury hasn’t determined who will be responsible for municipal finance tax matters,” Cross said. “The tax legislative counsel will be responsible for that decision.”
Cross joined Treasury in mid-2006, but his service was interrupted in 2012 when he left for a stint at the Securities and Exchange Commission as director of what was at the time the newly created Office of Municipal Securities.
Before 2006, Cross worked for 12 years at Hawkins Delafield & Wood.
He also served as counsel to the assistant chief counsel for financial institutions and products at the Internal Revenue Service from 1990 through part of 1993.
Before working at the IRS, Cross was an associate at the law firm now called Kutak Rock LLP in Atlanta and later was an associate, then partner, at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, also in Atlanta.
Cross earned a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1978, a law degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1981, where he was a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review, and an L.L.M. in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1988.
