Senate Finance Grills Werfel on IRS Spending Plans

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing this week, Daniel Werfel, President Biden’s nominee to serve as the next IRS commissioner, defended the agency’s additional $80 billion in funding authorized in the Inflation Reduction Act last year.

Werfel faced numerous questions from Senate Republicans about how the additional funding would be used. About $46 billion of the funding was allocated for enforcement and the rest to taxpayer services, operations support and modernizing business systems.

Werfel pledged not to expand tax audits on businesses and households making less than $400,000 per year and said he would be “unyielding in following my true north to increase public trust” in the agency.

Werfel, who most recently worked at the Boston Consulting Group, has a long history of government service in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations and served as acting IRS commissioner in 2013, taking over after top agency officials resigned over a controversy involving the scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.