{"id":280,"date":"2026-07-15T09:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=280"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:08:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:08:00","slug":"how-to-save-the-irs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"How to Save the IRS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which invested $80 billion to fix the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The agency produced a 200-page modernization plan, promising a major overhaul of the agency\u2019s processes and technology; and it introduced features like Direct File, a new free filing service that won high marks from government auditors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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All of this progress ended with President Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House. Trump\u2019s \u201cDepartment of Government Efficiency,\u201d under the direction of billionaire Elon Musk, canceled the funding appropriated by Congress, fired thousands of workers, and tossed out the agency\u2019s modernization plan. The Inspector General for Tax Administration reports that the IRS lost between January 2025 and January 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result, says former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, is an IRS that\u2019s badly diminished in capacity. \u201cThere\u2019s not an industrialized nation in the world that can exist and flourish if the tax system is chaotic,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like an engine part under the hood. You don\u2019t have to celebrate it, but it needs to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Werfel was the nation\u2019s 50th Commissioner of the IRS, serving from 2023 to 2025 under President Joe Biden. He is the executive in residence at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s School of Government and Policy and a Distinguished Fellow at Duke University\u2019s Sanford School of Public Policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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No video found at URL<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. The full interview is available at Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: When you accepted the job as IRS commissioner, what were your goals as far as what the public thought about the IRS and its performance? How important was it to you that people had good feelings about their dealings with your agency?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>I didn\u2019t want to have unrealistic expectations in terms of how people view the IRS. When I was going through my Senate confirmation process, I was sitting down with Senator [Tom] Tillis, and he asked me a similar question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, he has a lot of footballs in his office instead of books on the bookshelves, so that gave me an idea.I said, \u201cYou know, Senator, the IRS is like an NFL referee.\u201d And he perked up because now we\u2019re talking football. He said, \u201cWell, what do you mean by that?\u201d I said, \u201cWhat I mean by that is when the IRS gets the call wrong, 60,000 people will stand up and boo. But when the IRS gets the call right, 60,000 people will stand up and boo.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an IRS employee, you have to embrace that. Without you, there\u2019s no Super Bowl, there\u2019s no game, but nobody goes up to the ref and says, \u201cAre you going to Disney World?\u201d\u00a0or \u201cWhen\u2019s the parade?\u201d\u00a0But the refs don\u2019t complain about that either because they know that\u2019s part of the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reality for the IRS is that they\u2019re always going to be the ref. My goal was not about popularity. It was about demonstrating to the public that we had a true north of enforcing and administering the tax code fairly and equitably. And that given resources, we could modernize an organization that was absolutely in need of modernization.<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: Right. So I want to talk a little bit more about what you did to be a better referee, including efforts like <\/strong>Direct File<\/strong>, which was a signature initiative under your leadership. But I want to talk about first about what the current administration has done to the IRS. Continuing the sports metaphor, what\u2019s the condition of the stadium? How fair is the game now?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>Everything was abruptly stopped, canceled, shifted, and downsized as soon as DOGE arrived and as soon as the second Trump administration began.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taking a quick step back, the Inflation Reduction Act had infused tens of billions of dollars of new funds to the IRS to turn it around from a performance standpoint. The filing season before I arrived was one of the worst tax filing seasons in the history of the IRS: record low customer service, record high paper backlogs, anemic audit rates at every level, stagnant technology. It was a low point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The purpose of the Inflation Reduction Act investments was to say, \u201cNo more. We have to turn this around.\u201d And we were able to do that almost immediately.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Effective January 20 at noon in 2025, all of that work not only stopped, but it reversed. The people that we hired, especially the new employees, were all terminated or laid off. All the funding was essentially repealed. The modernization plan that I had put in place was dismissed and no longer in place. Direct File, as you mentioned, was terminated. Staffing went down quickly and aggressively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we know today. First of all, there\u2019s no plan from the IRS in terms of a modernization roadmap. When I joined the IRS in the Biden era, I got sworn in on March 13, 2023, and we produced our modernization plan on April 8, 2023. It was 200 pages of work streams and indicators and milestones. I called it my public to-do list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The irony is that the criticism I got from Republicans on the Hill was that this plan was not detailed enough. I\u2019m always game for feedback because I never believe I know it all or have the monopoly on the right answer. I went back to my team and said we need to add more detail. Let\u2019s add an appendix. Let\u2019s respond in letters to the Hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here we are now in the summer of 2026, a little past a year and a half into this administration, and there\u2019s no modernization plan whatsoever from the IRS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I try not to criticize the IRS in terms of whether they\u2019re doing a bad job or a good job. What I try to say is, show us the plan. Show us what you\u2019re holding yourself accountable for. What are the next updates to the website? What are the performance metrics you plan to achieve? I really just want the IRS to be held to the same standard that I and my predecessors were held to, which is a public scorecard of what they intend to achieve and accountability for whether they achieve it.<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: It turns out that the last filing season was not so great post-DOGE. I have in front of me the <\/strong>mid-year report<\/strong> of the National Taxpayer Advocate, and it says that the IRS performed \u201cbetter than expected\u201d\u2014I guess the bar was kind of low\u2014but that \u201cfor millions of taxpayers, the filing season was frustrating, confusing, and financially disruptive.\u201d It seems a lot of your work was demolished by DOGE and Elon Musk\u2019s chainsaw.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>When you underinvest in customer service, when you deplete call-in centers, when you deplete walk-in centers, and when you don\u2019t provide the right technology tools for taxpayers, where you do harm is with the taxpayers that need the IRS for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

If you are fortunate enough to be a taxpayer who submitted your tax return, and it didn\u2019t get flagged, and you did it electronically, it\u2019s going go through the system on a fully automated basis. You\u2019re not going to notice a difference if the IRS is underfunded or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are 180 million filers a year, so a lot of them don\u2019t need the IRS, but you also have millions of people who are impacted by sitting on the phone for way too long, who are unable to make an appointment at a walk-in center because it\u2019s shuttered, or who are not able to find what they need technology-wise on the website. And one thing about the IRS and taxes is that when you\u2019re waiting for your issue to be resolved, it\u2019s stressful.<\/p>\n

Those are the people who bear the burden of a smaller IRS. One of the things that\u2019s going on right now that\u2019s concerning is the paper backlog. There are a lot of people who still file on paper\u2014I wish they didn\u2019t\u2014but there are also a lot of functions at the IRS that are still paper-based. What the Inspector General has indicated is that because of the state of the IRS right now, the paper backlog is growing rapidly and is on path by the end of this year to be worse than it was during COVID, which was historically bad.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s important to understand why we want to invest in an IRS or a healthy set of referees\u2014not so that you can toast how great the IRS is or say, I love paying my taxes (although I do).<\/p>\n

This is just about being a healthy country. There\u2019s not an industrialized nation in the world that can exist and flourish if the tax system is chaotic. It\u2019s like an engine part under the hood. You don\u2019t have to celebrate it, but it needs to work.<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: Just to put a number on the scale and scope of the diminishing of the IRS\u2019s capacity, the Inspector General for Tax Administration says that the agency lost an estimated <\/strong> total workers between January 2025 and January 2026. That\u2019s more than a quarter of the workforce. That\u2019s a lot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>When I engaged with my international counterparts, people would marvel at how small the IRS was. For the size of our country, for the number of filers, for the complexity of our tax system, we actually have, by international comparison, a relatively small agency. When I got there, we had about 82,000 employees, and through the hiring surge, it was about 102,000 employees when I left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important for people to understand that the size of the IRS is not bloat. This is something I wish DOGE would have understood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I like to tell the story of Saturday, April 13, 2024, which was the last Saturday before April 15. We had the funds and the ability to open about 70 walk-in centers around the country for last minute tax help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In all locations around the country, we had over a thousand people show up by 5 a.m. If you run the full day as well as possible, you can only serve about 300 people, which means you\u2019re turning away 700 people who need help hours before the doors even open.<\/p>\n

And we had to do that. And I have to tell you, there was civil unrest at several locations. The police had to come because people were so upset that they couldn\u2019t get in to see the IRS. This might be an indictment of the complexity of our tax system, but it shouldn\u2019t be an indictment of the IRS. What it is, in my mind, is an example of how calling the IRS oversized and bloated is just not the reality of what we need to run the tax system effectively and get taxpayers the help they need.<\/p>\n

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Anne Kim: You\u2019ve written that DOGE made three big mistakes in its approach. Number one, it confused speed with progress. Number two, that it assumed it could just lift what works in a private sector straight into government. And three\u2014this is critical\u2014you said it believed that a \u201ctraumatized\u201d workforce was the right way to get buy in. Can you talk a little bit more about DOGE\u2019s errors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>First of all, it would be a mistake to go back to the way it was on January 19, 2024. The government should always be looking to improve, and there are major areas where there\u2019s a gap between what the government should be delivering and what it is delivering.<\/p>\n

One of the things that DOGE\u00a0was able to prove is that the government can move more quickly. It doesn\u2019t have to abide by bureaucracy at every turn. But what you want to do is do it in a way that better ensures success. For all of the disruption that DOGE achieved in terms of obliterating government functions and firing people and canceling contracts, the government actually spent more money at the end of DOGE than it did before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We spent a lot more, but we don\u2019t have USAID, and we don\u2019t have the same functioning Department of Education, and we don\u2019t have as many people in the IRS call center, or the Social Security call center. So it\u2019s harder to get through to these agencies when you need them. You might say, well, we did it in the interest of budget cuts, but the budget didn\u2019t get cut. In fact, spending went up. And so at its highest level, something went wrong.<\/p>\n

I am not against the idea of reform, bold reform, ambitious reform, telling taxpayers we\u2019re tired of the way the government\u2019s been doing it and that we\u2019re going to do it differently. Great. I\u2019m all aboard on that. But you have to be strategic, and you have to calibrate that when you\u2019re moving more quickly, you are going to bump into risks that can set you backwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think the Reflecting Pool is a great story\u2014an unfortunate story\u2014of what happens when you promise speed and deliver speed but end up maybe having to do the job twice. All of these mistakes and sloppiness in the interest of showing speed and showing the chainsaw\u2014I think history will say it wasn\u2019t worth it.<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: I want to ask about another risk to the reputation of the IRS as an agency, and that\u2019s what\u2019s happened as far as the IRS becoming an accomplice of immigration authorities. According to another Inspector General report I came across, the IRS has so far provided about <\/strong> addresses to ICE. Granted, ICE asked for more than a million records, so it could be a lot worse, but I have to think that this has got to be both a reputational and operational risk for the IRS to be involved in this way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>What\u2019s interesting about the IRS is that the IRS is agnostic on policy. Congress enacts policy through the tax code, and our role is to implement it as effectively, judiciously, and fairly as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You could ask me if there should<\/em> bea policy of the IRS sharing taxpayer information with ICE for the purpose of immigration enforcement, and that would be a separate conversation. My concern, though, is twofold. One is that the tax code didn\u2019t change. There is no legal specific basis in the law to share people\u2019s taxpayer information with ICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you want to share people\u2019s private taxpayer information with another government agency, you can. But you have to go to Congress and get permission. There\u2019s a section of the code\u2014Section 6103\u2014that delineates when you can share taxpayer information in which situations.<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re pointing to is broad language that says you can share taxpayer information for the purpose of criminal enforcement. Okay. But the way that\u2019s always been interpreted is if they\u2019re investigating Al Capone, some child trafficker, or some terrorist who\u2019s doing business in the US.<\/p>\n

In that situation, as part of an individual criminal investigation, you can share information with the [Department of] Justice to carry out that investigation. It\u2019s never been interpreted to say we can just create a mass program where there\u2019s an undefined criminal investigation for tens of thousands of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then you have to be really cautious and have a very buttoned-up process in terms of how you\u2019re sharing that information. What was alarming about the Inspector General report was there were just a lot of foot faults, to go back to a sports analogy. When you\u2019re dealing with taxpayer information, you don\u2019t want any foot faults. You want to be as precise and deliberate as you possibly can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes that can take longer, but that is, in my opinion, worth the price of our constitutional republic and our checks and balances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: So if we can imagine a future when the IRS is being rebuilt\u2014and hopefully that will be soon\u2014how would you go about doing that? You\u2019ve written that you\u2019re a \u201cproud technocrat\u201d who espouses \u201crelentless incrementalism.\u201d How would you apply that in this context when there seems to be so much that\u2019s broken right now with the IRS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019d start with people. Every organization\u2014even the most sophisticated AI companies in the world\u2014will say they need the right talent on the team to achieve the ambitions of the organization. My first step [would be] to rebuild a core team and a broader team of leaders and tacticians who understand how to move bureaucracies quickly and understand the tax system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I would not hire these people with a remit of returning us back in time. What did DOGE and this Trump administration teach us? It taught us that speed is possible. And there are ways in which to fast track and streamline processes in a way where the sky doesn\u2019t fall.<\/p>\n

I am by nature an incremental leader, but that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not an ambitious one. I would set an ambitious vision that all taxpayers should interact with the IRS digitally or virtually if they choose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[Now if you say you want that within three months,] I can\u2019t achieve that without websites crashing, without data being more subject to cybersecurity risk and other types of risk. But every time you come back to the IRS website, you\u2019d see new and expanded functionality because we would be relentless in how we are building out that functionality.<\/p>\n

But to do it, you need the right people with the skill sets to understand how to bring the IRS forward quickly but responsibly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anne Kim: <\/strong>\u00a0I want to finish up by asking about Direct File, since it\u2019s come up a couple of times in our conversation. How does Direct File represent the apotheosis of what a well-functioning, trusted agency can deliver to citizens? Why were you an advocate of it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Werfel: <\/strong>If you benchmark us against what are considered the highest performing tax authorities in the world, they\u2019re already well advanced of Direct File. They\u2019re presenting taxpayers with a completed return for you to thumbs up or thumbs down. As the taxpayer, you still have control. You can tell the tax authority, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t like what you\u2019ve done there,\u201dor you can just hit a button on your phone, and you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of reasons why the U.S. would not go in that direction culturally, and it would take a lot of resources. But a middle ground is providing the taxpayer with more options for how to file.<\/p>\n

Option one is to get out a pen and paper, download the forms and submit them. I hope you don\u2019t do that because it\u2019s going to take a long time, and it\u2019s inefficient. Option two might be to pay a commercial software provider to navigate you through your taxes, and you can pay whatever they\u2019re charging\u2014$150, $200, $300. That\u2019s your right and your choice. The third option, and this is mostly for middle- and low-income filers, is to work with software providers\u2019 free options.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The issue we had was that a material number of citizens out there were saying, \u201cI\u2019m not having a positive experience with the free program. It\u2019s hard to find the free version of the solution. And once I do find it, there are a lot of pop-ups like, \u2018Spend ten dollars here and twenty dollars there.\u2019\u201d It was so confusing that they ended up paying because of the confusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I spoke to taxpayers who made it through the free solution, but it was like walking a tightrope. They got through, but it was not easy to navigate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So the idea was to create one more option on the menu. This time it\u2019s free, but you don\u2019t have to work with a software provider if you don\u2019t want\u2014you can work with the IRS. And the way it was painted in this very political environment was, \u201cThis is the IRS forcing you to use their solution.\u201d Nothing\u2019s further from the truth. If you don\u2019t like the show, change the channel. You don\u2019t have to use Direct File if you don\u2019t want to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or that it was the IRS doing your taxes for you, and that\u2019s not it either. You still have to submit the information. You don\u2019t transmit until you\u2019re ready to transmit. I took a lot of heat when we were doing Direct File, that the IRS was judge and executioner. And I was like, \u201cNo, no, that\u2019s not what\u2019s going on here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then [critics said] it was redundant because the private sector already has a viable solution. My feedback was that there are enough citizens out there who want an alternative. And despite the conclusions reached by the current administration that Direct File is super expensive, that\u2019s actually not the case. It was far more reasonably priced than we thought it would be.<\/p>\n

So for all those reasons, I think it\u2019s a step backwards not to have Direct File. I wrote an op-ed about this, and what I said was, look, when I was doing Direct File, I took a lot of headwind resistance and flak from the private sector, which said this is unnecessary. The private sector can handle Free File. We don\u2019t need the IRS to do it. My answer to the private sector now is, okay, you got what you wanted. It\u2019s game time. Let\u2019s see how good you can make your free file solutions. If you make them really, really good, you might not ever need another Direct File.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I also said that there should be new entrants out there, and I hope we see a market emerge in the absence of Direct File. But I think it was a really important initiative. I\u2019m still proud of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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