Linda B. Burke resigns as LMSB Division Counsel.

• Position: IRS Large and Mid-Size Business Division

Linda B. Burke, who served for three years as the first Division Counsel of the IRS's Large and Mid-Size Business Division, has ended her government service, and returned to Pittsburgh and the private sector. Formerly, the Director of Tax for Alcoa, Inc., Ms. Burke served as TEI's 1994-1995 International President, and was elected to honorary, membership in the Institute upon her retirement from Alcoa.

On July 10, Ms. Burke was honored at a reception held at LMSB Division Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Speakers included Assistant Treasury Secretary (Tax Policy) Pamela F. Olson, IRS Chief Counsel B. John Williams, and Cynthia J. Matson, Deputy LMSB Division Counsel, who moderated the ceremony. Also asked tv make remarks was Timothy McCormally, TEI's Executive Director. The text of his remarks follow:

Thank you, Cindy. My name is Timothy McCormally, and I'm here from the other TEI--Tax Executives Institute [not Treasury Executive Institute, in whose conference room we have gathered.]. I am delighted to be here today, as a friend of Linda Burke's and representative of TEI, to commemorate and honor her service as LMSB Division Counsel.

As I think of Linda's service, here at LMSB and as a member of Tax Executives Institute, I pulled out the dictionary, and I opened it up to the letter P. Why?

Well, it started out for a simple reason.... She's from Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

But then I flipped a few pages, and found the word professional. And I thought, Linda Burke is a consummate professional in every sense of the word. She's smart, analytical, ethical, and always prepared.

Turn a few pages back, and there's another appropriate word--practical. Linda's 20-plus years with Alcoa ... in the trenches of tax planning, policy, and administration, gives her a perspective that you can't find in any book or article and, quite candidly, you can't glean from a private practitioner's desk or an IRS office. Her practicality and her experience made her an invaluable addition to LMSB because she knew whereof she spoke, she understood the consequences of what LMSB was doing, and she could separate the legitimate concerns of taxpayers and their representatives from their, yes, occasion hyperbole and exaggeration.

Forward a page or two, and you find one of the most descriptive words for Linda--principled. She has a well-defined moral code, a focused sense of duty, and she calls them as she sees them, regardless of which side of the table she is sitting on...