While all eyes have been on the One Big Beautiful Bill, Senate Republicans have also been pushing through President Trump’s picks for key IRS and Treasury positions.
Most recently, on June 26, the Senate voted 53 – 45 in favor of Ken Kies nomination as Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy.
Kies’ prior experience includes serving as Joint Committee on Taxation chief of staff, co-managing partner of PwC’s Washington National Tax Services, and chief Republican tax counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee. Kies has been at the lobbying firm Federal Policy Group since 2002.
In addition to confirming Kies for the top tax position at Treasury, there are two Senate-confirmed positions at the IRS — commissioner and chief counsel.
The commissioner role was filled June 12 when the Senate voted, on party lines, in favor of Trump’s pick, Billy Long.
Still awaiting confirmation is Donald Korb for the chief counsel position. Korb was tapped for the role in late April. He previously served as IRS Chief Counsel under President George W. Bush.
Tax bill implementation. Now that Republicans’ broad tax package has passed, having leadership in place and ready to implement the new laws will be important.
EY’s Kirsten Wielobob, speaking on the firm’s June 13 webinar, explained that below the IRS commissioner level, there are 28 employees overseeing tax administration. Wielobob noted that “the most recent figures show 16 leaders are ‘acting.'” In addition, “two positions are vacant out of 28, including the second-in-command.”
“As the new commissioner comes on board, they’ll have to stabilize the leadership structure quickly,” Wielobob added.
Former IRS Office of Chief Counsel attorney Alexis MacIvor, Speaking on a June 25 PwC Policy on Demand episode, said she “would anticipate that there is going to be a significant amount of work to implement the reconciliation bill.”
MacIvor was with agency’s Insurance branch during the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act implementation and left her most recent role at Financial Institutions and Products this March.
After the TCJA was enacted, MacIvor explained, it took a lot of work to put the new tax provisions into practice. That work included creating and updating forms, updating instructions, and providing “a significant amount of guidance” to taxpayers.
And guidance can take many forms, said MacIvor, depending on the resources that are available — and deemed worthy of allocating. Guidance can be a regulation, which MacIvor said “requires a lot more bandwidth for the agencies.” Alternatively, it can be IRB guidance, “something on a website,” or “information or a letter to select taxpayers.”
Of the new tax law, MacIvor said “there will be discussions about the best use of resources to try to implement it.”
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