Newly minted IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel was sworn into office on Tuesday, taking the helm of an agency in transition that oversees a $4.1 trillion tax revenue system.

Werfel, confirmed by a 54-42 Senate vote on March 9, officially became the 50th commissioner of the IRS as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen administered the oath of office. He succeeds former Commissioner Charles Rettig and will hold the position until November 2027.

“I had the time to reflect on the kind of government leader I want to be,” said Werfel on April 4. “Leaders that come in with a belief that they have all the answers and do not engage and listen to the people who have been there doing the work are bound to fail.”

Yellen deputized Werfel, who previously worked at Boston Consulting Group and the White House Office of Management and Budget, with two charges for his work ahead: to improve the taxpayer’s experience and ensure wealthy corporations and individuals pay their share. He vowed to end long wait times on the phone, provide more in-person help and improve refund tracking, digital scanning and online messaging that would make letters from the IRS “a thing of the past.”

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Over the last decade, the IRS budget declined by about 20%, and the agency has more than 20,000 fewer employees than in 2010.

“IRS employees will be the first to tell you that too many calls went unanswered and too many taxpayers went without support,” Yellen. “The IRS remained a primarily paper-based agency, one where employees still opened, and in certain cases transcribed, paper returns digit by digit.”

As the tax deadline looms two weeks away, leadership at the IRS comes before its employees and taxpayers with good news, Yellen said.

In the eight months since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act and cleared nearly $80 billion in funding over the next decade, the IRS hired 5,000 new customer service staff. With the help of live digital assistance, its level of service hovers between 80-90% compared to 15% the previous filing season, she said. As of January, the agency processed more inventory in the last 12 months than in any one-year period in history.

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The IRS also plans to couple data analytics technology with the hiring of more attorneys and accountants to “peel back” large entities and complex corporations to “make sure they pay what they owe,” though these resources will not go toward increased auditing of small businesses and households making under $400,000 a year, Yellen emphasized.

Werfel announced later this week, the IRS will be releasing its operating plan for the IRA, which Republicans have tried to block over concerns that the agency will target middle- and lower-class Americans.

“Despite what some might think or say, these public servants within the IRS are armed only with calculators and their skills to help us address complex issues,” Werfel said.

Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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