About a month before the close of the 2026 tax filing season, there’s a big question in Washington: Who is running the IRS?

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned this week that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s authority to serve as Acting Commissioner of the IRS appears to have expired under federal law.

In a letter to Bessent and Dan Scavino, director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, the senators say the administration has allowed the IRS to operate without Senate-confirmed leadership, relying on temporary officials and a newly created position that hasn’t been blessed by Congress: Chief Executive Officer.

Their argument centers on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), which limits how long acting officials can perform the duties of Senate-confirmed positions. According to the senators, the 210-day window for Bessent to serve as Acting Commissioner expired on March 6, 2026, and no nominee for a permanent IRS commissioner has been submitted to the Senate.

Treasury has not publicly said whether it agrees with that interpretation.

The timing is important. The IRS opened the 2026 tax filing season at the end of January and expects roughly 164 million individual tax returns to be filed before the April 15 deadline. At the same time, the agency is dealing with staffing reductions, hiring delays, and growing processing inventories that watchdogs like the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) say could make the filing season more difficult.

How The IRS Is Supposed To Be Run

The IRS Commissioner is the head of the IRS and is responsible for administering the nation’s tax laws. The commissioner sets the agency’s strategic priorities, oversees tax enforcement and taxpayer service operations, manages the IRS workforce and budget, and directs the policies and programs used to collect federal revenue and process tax returns.

The position was created under section 7803 of the tax code, which also sets the commissioner’s term at five years. That was purposeful, allowing a commissioner’s tenure to overlap presidential administrations—a move intended to suggest stability and continuity.

While the president can remove a commissioner (although this rarely happens), a new commissioner must be confirmed by the Senate. (It’s one of only two positions at the IRS that require Senate confirmation—the other being IRS Chief Counsel, who serves as the agency’s top legal officer.)

When those positions are vacant, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act allows certain officials to temporarily carry out their duties, but only for a limited period of time.

A Leadership Shuffle At The IRS

The current IRS Commissioner vacancy dates back to August 8, 2025, when President Donald Trump removed IRS Commissioner Billy Long from office. Long served in the position for less than two months.

Trump announced Long’s nomination in December 2024, even though Danny Werfel was then serving a term as IRS Commissioner that would normally have continued until late 2027. Werfel subsequently announced his resignation, effective January 20, 2025.

Since Long had not yet been confirmed, Werfel was replaced by IRS Deputy Commissioner Doug O’Donnell, who served as Acting Commissioner. O’Donnell left his position on February 28, 2025, and was succeeded by then-IRS Chief Operating Officer Melanie Krause. Krause announced her departure in April 2025, following the tax agency’s controversial agreement to share immigrant tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Gary Shapley served as Acting Commissioner for only two days after Krause’s departure, then was replaced by Michael Faulkender on April 18, 2025—he held that position until Long stepped in. (The New York Times reported that Bessent had been unaware that Shapley was named acting commissioner.)

Counting the succession of acting IRS heads, Long was the sixth person to run the IRS in 2025. He was replaced by Scott Bessent, who has been serving as Acting Commissioner while also serving as Secretary of the Treasury.

The leadership picture became even more complicated last October when the Treasury announced a new role at the IRS: Chief Executive Officer.

Treasury announced then that Frank Bisignano, the current Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, would serve as the IRS’s CEO while continuing to lead the Social Security Administration. According to Treasury, the new position was created to oversee IRS daily operations and report directly to Bessent.

The duties described for the CEO role sound familiar to anyone who has read the job description for the IRS commissioner. The IRS’s internal guidance describes the commissioner as responsible for directing agency operations, setting policy, and managing programs and performance across the tax administration system.

Sens. Wyden, Schumer, and Warren described the position as “a fake job that Congress has never authorized.”

They continued, “There is no reason to see the Trump administration’s appointment of a CEO as anything more than a strategy to avoid the vetting and confirmation process for a replacement commissioner.” Because the position did not previously exist, it is not subject to the same Senate confirmation requirements as the IRS Commissioner.

Treasury, for its part, has explained the decision differently, stating that the arrangement lets Bessent concentrate on wider Treasury duties while Bisignano handles operational issues at the IRS.

Who Is Frank Bisignano?

Bisignano became the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration in May 2025 after a Senate confirmation vote of 53–47 along party lines. Before joining the government, he spent decades in the private sector, including leadership roles at financial technology companies First Data and Fiserv.

His appointment means he oversees two of the federal government’s largest agencies at the same time. Running the IRS is generally considered a full-time job, particularly during the filing season, when the agency processes hundreds of millions of tax returns and issues refunds totaling hundreds of billions of dollars.

Another Acting Official: IRS Chief Counsel

Leadership questions aren’t limited to the commissioner’s office. The IRS Chief Counsel, the agency’s top legal advisor, is also currently serving in an acting capacity.

IRS Chief Counsel, a position dating back to 1866, serves as the chief legal advisor to the IRS Commissioner on all matters related to the interpretation, administration, and enforcement of tax laws, as well as other legal issues. The Chief Counsel provides legal guidance and interpretive advice to the IRS, the Treasury, and taxpayers. Under the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, the Chief Counsel reports to both the IRS Commissioner and the Treasury General Counsel.

Attorneys in the Chief Counsel's Office serve as the IRS's lawyers. They provide the IRS and taxpayers with guidance on interpreting Federal tax laws correctly, represent the IRS in litigation, and provide all other legal support required to carry out the IRS’s mission.

Similar to the IRS Commissioner, the Chief Counsel is appointed by the President and requires Senate confirmation.

Who’s Currently Acting As IRS Chief Counsel?

Last year, Trump nominated Donald Korb as IRS Chief Counsel and an Assistant General Counsel in the Department of the Treasury. Korb has practiced law for over 50 years in both the public and private sectors, most recently serving as Of Counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. (”Of counsel” is a designation usually linked to a lawyer affiliated with a law firm but not a partner or associate.) Before joining Sullivan & Cromwell, Korb served as IRS Chief Counsel from April 2004 to December 2008 under President George W. Bush. Early in his career, he worked for four years as an attorney-adviser in the IRS Chief Counsel’s Office.

Korb’s nomination was officially announced to the Senate on April 29, 2025. He was expected to assume a position that, like the IRS Commissioner's, has been a revolving door under the new administration.

Before Korb’s nod, Marjorie A. Rollinson served as the 49th IRS Chief Counsel. Rollinson had announced her intention to retire last December after the presidential election. That wasn't unexpected—the IRS Chief Counsel traditionally steps down during a new administration. However, the speed of Rollinson's departure caught many by surprise.

William Paul replaced Marjorie A. Rollinson in January. Before Rollinson's appointment, Paul had served as acting chief counsel since 2021. He has been at the IRS since the 1980s.

Paul was removed from office in March 2025. He was reportedly demoted for refusing to cooperate with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which allegedly sought to share taxpayer information with other federal agencies.

After Paul’s departure, Andrew De Mello, an attorney in the chief counsel's office who was seen as an ally of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was appointed acting chief counsel. However, in June, De Mello was replaced by Ken Kies, who had previously been confirmed as Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy.

Korb’s nomination was abruptly withdrawn. No official reason was provided, but many attributed the decision to opposition from conservative activist Laura Loomer. Loomer claimed responsibility for the withdrawal, posting on X (formerly Twitter) that “after reviewing my report, President Trump withdrew the nomination.” Loomer pointed to Korb’s history of “past political donations to Democratic candidates, praise for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and associations with figures opposed to Trump’s agenda” as the reason for the change.

In November 2025, Treasury designated Kies as Acting Chief Counsel while he continues to hold his Treasury role. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the senators say that Kies’s acting authority will expire on June 16, 2026, unless a nominee is submitted to the Senate. Like the commissioner position, no nominee has been announced so far.

Filing Season Begins Amid Operational Challenges

The leadership debate is taking place in the heart of the 2026 tax filing season. The agency expects to receive about 164 million individual tax returns before the April 15 filing deadline.

Things are already challenging at the agency. The IRS finished 2025 with about two million individual return items in inventory, including amended returns, taxpayer correspondence, paper returns, and other unresolved cases. According to TIGTA, that number is 129% higher than pre-pandemic levels. The backlog consists of more than half a million amended returns and nearly 300,000 paper-filed returns waiting for processing.

Large inventories can lead to slower processing times and delayed refunds. In recent years, the IRS has paid billions of dollars in interest on refunds that were issued late.

The senators have requested answers by April 6, including whether the department agrees that Bessent’s acting authority has expired and when nominations for IRS commissioner and chief counsel will be presented to the Senate.

© Forbes