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Internal Revenue Service

Commissioner:| Billy Long
Total employed:| 90,516 (2024)
Year created:| 1862
Official website:| Office website

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is an agency in the U.S. Department of the Treasury responsible for administering the United States tax code.[1] The current IRS commissioner is Billy Long.[2]

The Internal Revenue Service employed 90,516 people in the U.S. in 2024.[3]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Structure
* 2.1 Mission
* 2.2 Leadership
* 2.3 Organizational chart
* 3 Noteworthy events
* 4 See also
* 5 External links
* 6 Footnotes

## History[edit]

The commissioner of Internal Revenue was formed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to collect the newly passed income tax intended to fund the Civil War. The income tax was repealed ten years later, but it was revived in 1894. The Supreme Court then ruled the income tax unconstitutional in 1895. With the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913, the ability to collect income taxes was authorized.[4]

The first 1040 income tax form in 1913

The first income tax rates were 1 percent on incomes above $3,000 and a 6 percent surtax on incomes over $500,000. The rates and types of taxes changed depending on circumstances, reaching as high as 77 percent in the highest bracket during World War I. Payroll withholding tax and quarterly tax payments were implemented during World War II.[4] During Prohibition, the commissioner of Internal Revenue was charged with enforcing the ban on alcohol. In 1931, the IRS Intelligence Unit arrested noted gangster Al Capone on charges of tax evasion for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.[5]

In 1952, President Harry Truman reorganized the IRS to replace the patronage system with a career civil service system with the commissioner and chief counsel appointed by the president and confirmed by the United States Senate. President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name of the organization from the Bureau of Internal Revenue to the Internal Revenue Service in 1953. In 1954, the income tax filing date was changed from March 15 to April 15 of each year.[5]

The Tax Reform Act was passed during the Ronald Reagan administration, changing 300 provisions in the tax code. The IRS was reorganized in 1998 with the passage of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act. The reorganization was completed in 2000 with the formation of four main divisions: Wage and Investment, Small Business/Self-Employed, Large and Mid-Size Business, and Tax Exempt and Government Entities.[5]

## Structure[edit]

Administrative State

* * *

Read more about the administrative state on Ballotpedia.

### Mission[edit]

The official mission statement of the IRS is as follows:

“  | Provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all.[6] | ”

|
|

—IRS[1]

### Leadership[edit]

The current commissioner of the IRS is Billy Long.

Commissioner of the IRS Full History

IRS Commissioner | Years in office | Nominated by | Confirmation vote
Russell C. Harrington | 1955-1958 | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Dana Latham | 1958-1961 | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Mortimer M. Caplin | 1961-1964 | John F. Kennedy |
Sheldon S. Cohen | 1965-1969 | Lyndon B. Johnson |
Randolph W. Thrower | 1969-1971 | Richard Nixon |
Johnnie M. Walters | 1971-1973 | Richard Nixon |
Donald C. Alexander | 1973-1977 | Gerald Ford |
Jerome Kurtz | 1977-1980 | Jimmy Carter |
Roscoe L. Egger Jr. | 1981-1986 | Ronald Reagan |
Lawrence B. Gibbs | 1986-1989 | Ronald Reagan |
Fred Goldberg Jr. | 1989-1992 | George H.W. Bush |
Shirley D. Peterson | 1992-1993 | George H.W. Bush |
Margaret Milner Richardson | 1993-1997 | Bill Clinton |
Charles O. Rossotti | 1997-2002 | Bill Clinton |
Mark W. Everson | 2003-2007 | George W. Bush |
Douglas H. Shulman | 2008-2012 | Barack Obama |
John Koskinen | 2013-2017 | Barack Obama | 59-36
Charles Rettig | 2018-2022 | Donald Trump | 64-33
Danny Werfel | 2023-2025 | Joe Biden | 54-42
Billy Long | 2025-present | Donald Trump | 53-44

Note: Votes marked "N/A" represent voice votes or unrecorded votes.

### Organizational chart[edit]

Click here to view the IRS' organizational chart.

## Noteworthy events[edit]

See also: Federal policy on taxes, 2017-2018 and Significant regulatory action

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury released a memorandum of understanding on April 12, 2018, granting the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)—an office within OMB responsible for reviewing and coordinating what it deems all significant regulatory actions made by federal agencies—the authority to review proposed major tax regulations issued by the IRS.[7][8]

The memorandum of understanding ended an IRS exemption from OIRA's regulatory review process that had been in place since 1983. The Trump administration had sought to bring major IRS regulations under OIRA's regulatory review process since the passage of the administration's tax legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in December 2017.[7]

The memorandum of understanding subjected the following types of IRS regulations to OIRA's regulatory review process:[8]

“  | A tax regulatory action will be subject to review by OIRA under section 6 of Executive Order 12866 if it is likely to result in a rule that may:

(a) create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency;
(b) raise novel legal or policy issues, such as by prescribing a rule of conduct backed by an assessable payment; or
(c) have an annual non-revenue effect on the economy of $100 million or more, measured against a no-action baseline.[8][6]
| ”

|
|

## See also[edit]

* Federal policy on taxes, 2017-2018
* IRS Form 990
* IRS code, section 501

## External links[edit]

* Official Internal Revenue Service website
* Search Google News for this topic

## Footnotes[edit]

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 IRS, "The Agency, its Mission and Statutory Authority," accessed April 14, 2014
2. ↑ Roll Call, "Ex-Rep. Long confirmed as Trump’s IRS commissioner," June 12, 2025
3. ↑ IRS, "IRS Budget and Workforce," accessed June 12, 2025
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 IRS, "Brief History of IRS," accessed April 15, 2014
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 IRS, "Historical Highlights of the IRS," April 17, 2014
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Politico, "Mulvaney prevails in turf battle over tax regs," April 12, 2018
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Memorandum of Agreement," accessed August 7, 2018

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The Administrative State

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Bibliography|

* "Administrative Law - The 20th Century Bequeaths an 'Illegitimate Exotic' in Full and Terrifying Flower" by Stephen P. Dresch (2000)
* "Confronting the Administrative Threat" by Philip Hamburger and Tony Mills (2017)
* "Constitutionalism after the New Deal" by Cass R. Sunstein (1987)
* Federalist No. 23 by Alexander Hamilton (1787)
* "From Administrative State to Constitutional Government" by Joseph Postell (2012)
* "Interring the Nondelegation Doctrine" by Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule (2002)
* "Rulemaking as Legislating" by Kathryn Watts (2015)
* "The Checks & Balances of the Regulatory State" by Paul R. Verkuil (2016)
* "The Myth of the Nondelegation Doctrine" by Keith E. Whittington and Jason Iuliano (2017)
* "The Progressive Origins of the Administrative State: Wilson, Goodnow, and Landis" by Ronald J. Pestritto (2007)
* "The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State" by Gary Lawson (1994)
* "The Study of Administration" by Woodrow Wilson (1887)
* "The Threat to Liberty" by Steven F. Hayward (2017)
* "Why the Modern Administrative State Is Inconsistent with the Rule of Law" by Richard A. Epstein (2008)

Agencies|

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