Role of the Treasury

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's mission is to maintain a strong economy and create economic and job opportunities by promoting the conditions that enable economic growth and stability at home and abroad, strengthen national security by combating threats and protecting the integrity of the financial system, and manage the U.S. Government’s finances and resources effectively.

Treasury's mission highlights its role as the steward of U.S. economic and financial systems, and as an influential participant in the world economy.
 

The Treasury Department is the executive agency responsible for promoting economic prosperity and ensuring the financial security of the United States. The Department is responsible for a wide range of activities such as advising the President on economic and financial issues, encouraging sustainable economic growth, and fostering improved governance in financial institutions. The Department of the Treasury operates and maintains systems that are critical to the nation's financial infrastructure, such as the production of coin and currency, the disbursement of payments to the American public, revenue collection, and the borrowing of funds necessary to run the federal government. The Department works with other federal agencies, foreign governments, and international financial institutions to encourage global economic growth, raise standards of living, and to the extent possible, predict and prevent economic and financial crises. The Treasury Department also performs a critical and far-reaching role in enhancing national security by implementing economic sanctions against foreign threats to the U.S., identifying and targeting the financial support networks of national security threats, and improving the  safeguards of our financial systems.

 

Organization

The Department of the Treasury is organized into two major components, the Departmental offices and the operating bureaus. The Departmental Offices are primarily responsible for the formulation of policy and management of the Department as a whole, while the operating bureaus carry out the specific operations assigned to the Department. Our bureaus make up 98% of the Treasury work force. The basic functions of the Department of the Treasury include:

  • Managing Federal finances;
  • Collecting taxes, duties and monies paid to and due to the U.S. and paying all bills of the U.S.;
  • Currency and coinage;
  • Managing Government accounts and the public debt;
  • Supervising national banks and thrift institutions;
  • Advising on domestic and international financial, monetary, economic, trade and tax policy;
  • Enforcing Federal finance and tax laws;
  • Investigating and prosecuting tax evaders, counterfeiters, and forgers.

 

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