Irs Ceo Defiant As Washington Asks Who's Running Things

Inside and outside the IRS, people want to know who is really running the agency. IRS CEO Frank Bisignano says it's the least of his worries.

Named last October to the newly invented role of IRS chief executive officer, Bisignano is instead focusing on what he calls a transformative overhaul using artificial intelligence to reduce staff workloads and taxpayer call times following a year in which the agency lost 25 percent of its workforce and billions in federal funding. But agency staff, union leaders and lawmakers say the former Wall Street executive hasn't backed up his claims and has instead stifled contracting processes needed to make the changes while serving as an enforcer of White House mandates.

The unusual nature of his role — one that doesn't exist in federal law — is raising questions about who's really in charge of the agency as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent holds the title of acting IRS commissioner. Fueling the scrutiny is the fact that Bisignano also serves as commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

In an interview with POLITICO, Bisignano brushed off these concerns by invoking his time in C-suites at major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Fiserv.

“I don't spend my time at all thinking about what you're asking me about,” he said, when asked about who's actually running the IRS. “We operate within the lines. We operate within the lines always, and deliver for the American public. I always look at it like I'm running two large organizations, and every day has activity on both of those just like if I was running a mortgage company to restart the housing market."

The unusual nature of Bisignano's position is at the heart of concerns voiced by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as well as agency staff over whether he can be a change agent for an agency that's struggled to improve customer service after dramatic swings in leadership and operations since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. The questions are set to be aired publicly when he appears for the first time before the Senate Finance Committee on April 15, just as the first tax filing season of Trump's second term comes to a close.

He said the agency has improved its technological capabilities and is handling “tens of millions of more online transactions than we did before.” An agency spokesperson later said that amounted to a 22 percent increase so far this year compared with the same point last filing season. Bisignano cited the IRS website's longstanding “Where’s My Refund” feature, saying it was “driving down phone calls and easier for Americans to utilize.”

But he responded to follow-up questions about how he's improved the refund tracker with a six-word text message: "I'm the ceo of the irs." He did not elaborate.

'Single person chokepoint'

Six people at the IRS, who were granted anonymity to avoid retribution, described a leader who has claimed credit for others' work, sown discord and acted as Trump’s lieutenant. IRS commissioners, in roles created by Congress, are typically seen as apolitical administrators of the tax code whose terms outlast those of the presidents who appointed them.

One IRS official called Bisignano “a fake” and said the only notable recent update to the refund tool was making the service accessible through "individual online accounts," which happened before he came to the agency. The official said Bisignano's order for the IRS to review and justify contracts made him a “single person chokepoint for procurement" who impaired the agency's ability to move forward on efforts like using artificial intelligence to aid with tax collection.

"Since joining in October, the only vision we've received is — be more of a digital agency, improve [customer service] and collect more revenue. No specifics on how. Every now and then it'll be, 'We should use AI,'" the official said. "I can't point to any one thing that's better, except we don't have a revolving door of commissioners." Since Jan. 20, 2025, when Biden-era Commissioner Danny Werfel stepped down, the IRS has been led by six other commissioners, only one of whom was confirmed by the Senate: former Rep. Billy Long, who lasted less than two months.

Doreen Greenwald, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers, ripped Bisignano for involuntarily reassigning staff to customer service roles for which they’ve received no training. She said that could expose taxpayers to incomplete or incorrect tax guidance and delays in resolving tax disputes. And she chastised the agency for canceling the union's collective bargaining agreement, which could grant Bisignano more authority to displace staff.

“The filing season, for the most part, is up and really operates based on work that’s done 12 months or more before that," Greenwald said. "So I all along believed that this filing season would go pretty much as planned because nothing was really different. Time will tell.”

A Treasury spokesperson referred to Bessent’s October statement in which he said Bisignano would “focus on collections, privacy, and customer service” at the IRS.

Expecting more from the CEO

Democratic lawmakers are anticipating Bisignano's April 15 Senate hearing, which will be their first chance to question his performance after his "CEO" title avoided the confirmation process IRS commissioners go through. Bisignano also will be looking to make a better impression than he did at his House Ways and Means appearance last month, when at least one Republican tax writer found him to be unprepared and vague in his answers.

“He burned a lot of credibility,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is set to grill Bisignano as a member of Senate Finance. “He told us wait times for phone calls were measured in seconds, and it turned out that simply was not true.”

Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, questioned how long the IRS could continue modernizing after the Republican-led Congress pared back tens of billions of dollars the agency received under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.

“What I think is bothersome to us is that the success that they’re having with their tech upgrades," Neal said. "It came from the money that we appropriated.”

Bisignano does have allies at the IRS and in Congress. Three agency officials granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly described him as a stabilizing force after the agency cycled through seven confirmed and acting commissioners last year. Two of those officials said he holds weekly meetings to gather performance data on every office, with one describing it as the most face time with an IRS head in recent history.

An IRS spokesperson also referred to glowing statements from House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.); Mark Notarainni, an executive at tax prep company Intuit; and IRS Chief Information Officer Kaschit Pandya, who said Bisignano’s “focus is truly around transforming the IRS through technology that delivers higher quality service to taxpayers.”

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), who scolded Bisignano for dodging questions during the March 4 Ways and Means hearing, said he was more optimistic after they spoke personally.

“He hasn’t been in it for long,” Miller said. “The guy’s doing SSA and he’s doing IRS. He just got launched into that role. I expected more from him, and I still do."