IRS commissioner to step down before his term ends, letting Trump advance his own pick

Management

IRS commissioner to step down before his term ends, letting Trump advance his own pick

Werfel applauded IRS employees for supporting two of the “best filing seasons in decades," after tapping into billions in Inflation Reduction Act funds.

Jory Heckman@jheckmanWFED

January 17, 2025 2:51 pm

3 min read

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel will step down Monday, allowing President-elect Donald Trump to move forward with his own pick for the job.

Werfel’s term expires in November 2027, but Trump last month announced his own pick, former Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), to serve as the next IRS commissioner.

In an email to IRS employees, Werfel said he intended to complete his full term as commissioner, but decided that the “best way to support a successful transition” is to leave the agency on Inauguration Day.

“While leaving a job you love is never easy, I take comfort in knowing that the civil servant leaders and employees at the IRS are the exact right team to effectively steward this organization forward until a new IRS Commissioner is confirmed,” Werfel wrote.

Deputy IRS Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell will serve as acting IRS commissioner until a new permanent agency head is confirmed.

Werfel applauded IRS employees for their work supporting two of the “best filing seasons in decades” — efforts that were buoyed by billions of dollars of multi-year modernization funds in the Inflation Reduction Act.

When Congress passed the legislation in 2022, it gave the IRS $80 billion to spend over a decade. Lawmakers, however, have pared those funds down to roughly half that sum, after two rounds of cuts.

The IRS used its Inflation Reduction Act funds to staff up with more employees to answer taxpayers’ phone calls and provide tax filing assistance.

Recent data shows the IRS surpassed 100,000 total employees by the end of fiscal 2024, its highest level of staffing since 1997.

Werfel said the IRS answered nearly nine out of 10 calls over the last two filing seasons, up from its previous average of just two out of every 10 calls. It also cut call wait times from 30 minutes to under five minutes.

The IRS has recovered about $4.7 billion through new initiatives launched under the Inflation Reduction Act. That total includes the agency recovering $1.4 billion from about 1,600 millionaires who had not paid overdue tax debts or filed tax returns in recent years.

The agency is also modernizing the Individual Master File, the core processing system for each year’s tax filing season. Werfel said the IRS has turned a corner on the long-time project, and that the new system is “running in parallel with our legacy system.”

“Brick by brick — and online tool by online tool — we are making improvements that will empower IRS to more quickly implement any tax code changes like those that may be enacted in 2025, while reducing the costs of maintaining IRS systems,” Werfel said.

Werfel said he’s met with IRS employees, members of Congress and transition team staff about the upcoming presidential transition.

“I start each of those conversations with the same key point: As a non-partisan entity, the IRS will work as tirelessly to support the incoming Treasury team’s agenda just as we have for the outgoing Treasury team.”

Chuck Rettig, the IRS commissioner during the first Trump administration, said in a LinkedIn post Friday that Werfel was “the right person at the right time to lead the IRS transition into a highly modernized agency able to efficiently and effectively deliver meaningful taxpayer services and an appropriate tax enforcement presence.”

“Although these tasks are far from complete, the Service is in a significantly better place going forward thanks to Danny Werfel and the entire dedicated IRS workforce,” Rettig wrote.