IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel says he plans to resign with nearly three years left in his term on Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day next week. Trump last month announced his plan to replace Werfel with Billy Long, a former Republican congressman. However, in a move that seems to avoid that confrontation, Biden-elect Werfel will step down himself.

Wefel was selected for the commissioner position at the IRS by President Biden in March 2023. Biden picked Werfel to implement the agency’s $80 billion expansion and transformation. However, with Trump set to take office, that project remains incomplete and is now in the hands of a new Republican administration.

“I had to recognize that the incoming team wanted to go in a new direction,” Werfel said in a WSJ interview. He added that he worried about the complications of remaining in office while the Senate considers Trump-choice Billy Long’s nomination. “It’s therefore hard to predict what type of distractions this unprecedented scenario would create.”

Also Read: 10 ASEAN Countries Push Back Against the US Dollar

Who Will Be the Next IRS Commissioner?

Douglas O’Donnell, a senior career IRS official, will become acting commissioner, Werfel told agency employees. O’Donnell will lead the agency entering the upcoming tax season, which begins on January 27.

Congress intentionally gave the IRS commissioner a five-year term that overlaps presidential administrations. This is to insulate the tax agency from partisan politics and differentiate this job from most senior administration posts. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama kept their predecessors’ IRS chiefs in place. Additionally, so did Trump and Biden in 2017 and 2021, respectively. However, this time around Trump has said he would nominate a new IRS commissioner, that being Billy Long. If confirmed, Long would fill the remainder of Werfel’s term, which ends in November 2027.

Also Read: Wyoming Introduces Legislation to Allow Funds to Diversify into Bitcoin

“The common denominator that every new commissioner sees,” Werfel said, “is a workforce that knows how to get things done, that understands where the obstacles are and has seen how to overcome them, that is nonpartisan through and through and really cares deeply about the IRS mission.”

Furthermore, Werfel said he hasn’t spoken with Long or discussed his status with the incoming administration. He is hoping that even after his resignation, the new administration will continue the progress the IRS made in the last two years. “We are a long way ahead of where we were two or three years ago,” Werfel said. “Across the board, those changes are nonpartisan. Across the board, those changes help taxpayers, help our effectiveness and our efficiency, help the deficit.”

  • IRS