Once again, the Internal Revenue Service has a new sheriff in town.
Longtime banking executive and current commissioner of the United States Social Security Administration Frank Bisignano is joining the IRS as its first-ever CEO, according to a Monday announcement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Bisignano, whose most recent private sector post was president and CEO of payments processor Fiserv, is also colloquially known as Wall Street’s Mr. Fix-It given his decades of experience of troubleshooting problems throughout multiple large banks. (Bisignano oversaw J.P. Morgan’s mortgage business in the mid-2000’s and was tasked with turning it around after the 2008 financial crisis.)
“Frank is a businessman with an exceptional track record of driving growth and efficiency in the private and now public sector,” Bessent, who also serves as IRS Acting Commissioner, said in a statement. Even with Bisignano joining, Bessent will remain as Commissioner.
The IRS will “sharpen” its focus on collections, Bessent said, in addition to homing in on privacy and customer service. It’s no secret that interfacing with the IRS is unpleasant. Just Google “IRS paper backlog” for a taste of what the agency is grappling with.
That’s something the Trump administration is looking to tackle: In August, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia shared he’ll be working with the government as a so-called Chief Design Officer. His first project? Improving the online presence of the IRS.
There’s just one thing: Bisignano already has a cabinet-level role in the Trump Administration as commissioner of the Social Security Administration. He accepted that role at the start of Trump’s term.
Which begs the question: How much can Bisignano really dedicate to the agency if he already has his hands full with the Social Security Administration?
While the Trump administration is trying to downplay the overlap (Bessent acknowledged that both agencies “share many of the same technological and customer service goals,”) not everyone’s convinced.
Brian Bernhardt, a partner at Fox Rothschild who focuses on federal tax litigation, says without a full-time IRS Commissioner, the agency will “suffer from poor morale,” and also struggle to keep up with the current filing season, as well as the next one.
“He, like Secretary Bessent will not be able to give the IRS what it needs — a full-time Commissioner focused on all of the day to day needs of the IRS,” Bernhardt says. “While Mr. Bisignano’s business background, and his other service in the administration, indicates he may tend to favor business interests, that’s not a change from Secretary Bessent, the other acting IRS leadership during this administration, or the policies of this administration.”
The IRS has suffered from rapid leadership changes and an absence of clear direction. Seven people served as commissioner from January to August, and if the agency is ever going to dig itself out from under its backlog, its new CEO will have to stick around long enough to steady the ship.
Melissa Angell
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