(JustPatriots.com)- IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig will depart the organization in three weeks, and no one has been able to step in to manage the organization since.
President Biden hasn’t chosen anyone to succeed Charles Rettig as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and with fewer than three weeks left in his tenure, the tax agency lacks a leader to guide the $80 billion agency expansion that Democrats recently pushed through Congress.
After November 12, an interim IRS commissioner is very definitely necessary due to the delay in selecting and confirming Mr. Rettig’s replacement. The acting commissioner may be hesitant to make judgments that will have a lasting impact on the agency.
If Republicans gain a Senate majority in November, any vacancy that persists until January will allow them to influence or reject a Biden candidate.
According to Ben Koltun, director of research at Beacon Policy Advisors LLC in Washington, the Biden administration didn’t give the hiring of an IRS commissioner enough attention for the past two years, and the choice will now likely be made by the next Congress.
According to a source who knows the situation, officials have contacted potential candidates.
The IRS suffers from severe hiring needs and a massive backlog, so any additional time spent delaying the appointment of a new commish could make both problems substantially worse.
The IRS will hopefully find a commissioner more quickly than they can fill 87,000 new employees over the next ten years. What does one commissioner matter in the broad scheme of things when the IRS has lost 17,000 enforcement personnel and over 9,000 customer service agents in the previous ten years?
Candidates go through a thorough vetting process, including looking at several years’ worth of tax returns. According to the Journal, they also need to be ready for high-stakes tax politics, which will require them to negotiate with lawmakers who want robust enforcement and those who caution that increased spending will lead to intrusive enforcement.
