Trump to replace IRS chief nearly two months after he stepped into the job
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will temporarily lead the agency, but it's unclear who will permanently replace Long
Former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to be Internal Revenue Service Commissioner, speaks during a Senate Finance Committee nomination hearing on Capitol Hill on May 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump will be replacing Internal Revenue Service chief Billy Long, just two months after he stepped in to helm the embattled tax agency, per a person familiar with the matter.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting commissioner for the time being. Long will be nominated to an ambassadorship, the person said.
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It's unclear who will permanently replace Long at the IRS. The New York Times first reported the ouster.
Long said on Friday afternoon he was becoming the next U.S. ambassador to Iceland. "It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland," Long wrote on X. "I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda."
Since his second inauguration, Trump has cycled through five acting commissioners before settling — briefly — on Billy Long. The carousel of appointments have seen Douglas O’Donnell, Melanie Krause, Gary Shapley, and Michael Faulkender all hold the job on an interim basis until a permanent commissioner was installed.
That figure was supposed to be Long, who was confirmed to the top post in a party-line Senate vote on June 12 and sworn in as IRS commissioner four days later. However, Long was always an odd, if contradictory fit for the agency. Once a House Republican lawmaker, Long had introduced legislation to abolish the IRS. He didn't possess significant tax credentials either to oversee the tax-collecting agency.
Tax experts noted that the IRS is in the middle of a precarious act of implementing the tax and spending law that Trump signed just a month ago while grappling with sweeping staff reductions. The IRS has shed 25% of its workforce since the start of Trump's second term. It's also navigating a high-stakes overhaul of its creaky IT systems and often relies outside contractors to fulfill its responsibilities.
"This change at the top of the IRS is coming at time where the agency is busy preparing for not only for the 2026 filing season... but a particularly time and resource intensive process when you have new aspects of tax law to interpret," Andrew Lautz, director of tax policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Quartz.
It'll be several weeks, possibly months, until the GOP-held Senate can confirm a replacement for Long.