IRS Shakes Up Leadership Roles With New ‘Single Deputy’ IRS Commissioner, Four New Chiefs

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington, on Oct. 16, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a new leadership structure for the first time in more than twenty years, reducing a key position and introducing four new positions.

Currently, the IRS is overseen by two deputy commissioners. The new organizational structure features a “single deputy IRS commissioner” and adds four new chief positions overseeing taxpayer service, tax compliance, information technology, and operations, said a Dec. 13 press release. This will be the first update to the IRS' organization chart in over two decades as the current leadership structure dates back to 2000. The updates are anticipated to take place in early 2024.

The new structure will include an IRS commissioner, followed by a deputy commissioner, and four chiefs who report to the top leadership. The agency expects the changes to strengthen the oversight capability of the senior team.

“This new governance model better supports the agency’s mission as well as giving heightened importance to these four key areas of taxpayer service, tax compliance, IT, and operations,” Mr. Werfel said. “These are critical areas we need to focus on, and this structure will reflect those priorities.”

The IRS commissioner stressed that the leadership changes will not immediately impact the day-to-day work of the vast majority of IRS employees. Only the reporting structure for these top positions would be affected.

The role of the IRS deputy commissioner will be filled by Doug O'Donnell, who currently serves as the deputy commissioner for Services and Enforcement. Between November 2022 and March 2023, he served as acting IRS commissioner. Mr. O’Donnell has worked with the agency in a variety of roles for over 37 years.

“The new organizational structure reflects years of effort at the IRS. The roots of this change date to the Taxpayer First Act Report to Congress in January 2021 and are contained in the new IRS Strategic Operating Plan released this April,” the IRS stated.

“The changes will streamline operational efficiencies and align with major transformation work underway at the agency through the Inflation Reduction Act funding.”

The IRS initially received $80 billion via the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last year by President Joe Biden. This was reduced to $60 billion later on. The funds were supposed to be used to technologically upgrade the IRS and boost the agency’s tax compliance and enforcement efforts.

In November, Mr. Werfel said that the agency planned to use the Inflation Reduction Act funds to modernize IT systems, rebuild capacities, and boost employee training. In an interview with Federal News Network, he said the IRS would “ramp up” enforcement hiring entering into 2024.

Republicans had earlier raised concerns that the Inflation Reduction Act funds would be used by the IRS to increasingly target ordinary American citizens.

The Four Chiefs

The four new chief positions at the IRS are: chief of Taxpayer Service, chief taxpayer compliance officer, chief information officer, and chief operating officer.

Ken Corbin, who currently serves as IRS Wage and Investment (W&I) commissioner, will take over the role of chief of Taxpayer Service.

“The new Taxpayer Service area will include many of the major taxpayer functions currently handled by Corbin’s W&I organization, including handling the filing season work and taxpayer-facing operations including toll-free operations, tax return processing centers, Taxpayer Assistance Centers and tax forms, taxpayer correspondence and publication development,” according to the IRS.

Mr. Corbin has served the IRS for over three decades and has an extensive background in submission processing, compliance services, and accounts management.

Heather Maloy, currently the IRS chief of staff, will serve as the chief taxpayer compliance officer. She will oversee compliance operations at departments like the Small Business/Self-Employed division, Whistleblower Office, and Tax Exempt and Government Entities division.

Mr. Werfel pointed out that creating a chief position for compliance was crucial given the agency’s increasing focus on non-compliant taxpayers and businesses.

“Compliance is an area where the IRS will be focused on during transformation work. Having a single leadership role focused on this will help our efforts going forward in this critical area for tax administration,” he said.

Ms. Maloy’s exit would make Jonathan Warsh, a senior counselor to the IRS commissioner, the acting IRS chief of staff.

Rajiv Uppal, who will join the IRS in 2024, will be the agency’s chief information officer. He is currently serving as the director of the Office of Information Technology and chief information officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“Our work in the technology arena is critical to our current work on everything from filing season to our phone lines and our online tools,” Mr. Werfel said.

“Creating this position will be critical to making sure information technology works closely with our business units and our transformation teams to create successes for taxpayers and the tax system, now and in the future.”

The position of chief operating officer will be taken over by Melanie Krause, who joined IRS in 2021 and is currently serving as the agency’s chief data and analytics officer. Ms. Krause currently co-leads the Data and Analytics Strategic Integration Board, where she works to advance areas of strategic importance to the IRS, including the use of AI.

Back in September, the IRS said that it expects artificial intelligence to help boost tax enforcement among large partnerships. The technology had already helped the agency to open investigations into 75 of the biggest partnerships in the country, each with assets worth $10 billion on average.