The IRS is likely also to continue to face questions from Democrats about the decision to audit former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe—both outspoken critics of Trump—in the same year.
The IRS Commissioner job has historically been a difficult post to fill partially because of the special skills needed to lead an agency of roughly 80,000 employees that is responsible for collecting the revenue that funds the federal government.
Koskinen, who served as IRS Commissioner from 2013-2017 said that Biden should prioritize picking someone experience managing a large budget and big organization over someone who is a tax expert.
“The last thing in the world the IRS needs is more tax expertise,” Koskinen said at a Tax Policy Center event Thursday. “What the IRS needs in the next commissioner is somebody who can take advantage of this funding, organize internally to deal with it, take the plans that exist, update them, modify them as appropriate, and deal with the significant challenge of hiring the right people in the right numbers.”
Biden will also have the opportunity to select the IRS’s Chief Counsel, the top lawyer at the agency, which is the only other political appointee position at the large civil servant agency.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.