The IRS now has a new chief position. Here’s who’s CEO

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano was named to the newly created position of CEO of the IRS on Monday, making him the latest member of the The President administration to be put in charge of multiple federal agencies.

As IRS CEO, Bisignano will report to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who currently serves as acting commissioner of the IRS, the Treasury Department says. It is unclear whether Bisignano’s newly created role at the IRS will require Senate confirmation.

The Treasury Department said in a statement that Bisignano will be responsible for overseeing all day-to-day IRS operations while also continuing to serve in his role as commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Bessent said in a statement that the IRS and SSA “share many of the same technological and customer service goals. This makes Mr. Bisignano a natural choice for this role.”

The move to install Bisignano at the IRS adds another layer to the leadership shuffling that has occurred at the agency since the beginning of The President’s term. Bessent was named acting commissioner in August after The President removed former U.S. Rep Billy Long from the role less than two months after his confirmation, and nominated him as ambassador to Iceland.

The four acting commissioners who preceded Long in the job included one who resigned over a deal between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another whose appointment led to a fight between former The President adviser Elon Musk and Bessent.

Mike Kaercher, deputy director of the Tax Law Center at the New York University School of Law, points to a possible conflict of interest in Bisignano holding leadership roles at SSA and the IRS. “Putting the same person in charge of both the IRS and SSA creates a conflict of interest when SSA wants access to legally protected taxpayer data,” Kaercher said.

With two day jobs, Bisignano joins a number of other The President administration officials to wear multiple hats, including Bessent, Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, Jamieson Greer and Russell Vought.

IRS and Social Security advocates expressed concern about the new appointment.

Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, pointed to Bisignano being named to a position that appears to avoid congressional approval.

“If the The President Admin asked for the Senate’s advice & consent, would they really want the same person running the government’s biggest program AND overseeing the implementation of the extraordinarily complex new tax law?” she said on the Bluesky social media app.

And Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for SSA recipients and future retirees, said Bisignano’s “divided attention will create a bottleneck that makes the inevitable problems that arise even harder to correct. Never in Social Security’s 90-year history has a commissioner held a second job. Bisiginano’s new role will leave a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency, especially since the Republican Senate hasn’t even confirmed a deputy commissioner.”

Bisignano has served as CEO of Fiserv, a payments and financial services tech firm, since 2020. He is a onetime defender of corporate policies to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.

—Fatima Hussein, Associated Press

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