Commissioner of Internal Revenue | |
---|---|
United States Internal Revenue Service | |
Style | Commissioner |
Reports to | Secretary of the Treasury |
Seat | Internal Revenue Service Building 1111 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, D.C. |
Appointer | President of the United States with Senate advice and consent |
Term length | 5 years |
Constituting instrument | 26 U.S.C. § 7803 |
Formation | 1862 |
First holder | George S. Boutwell |
Website | www.irs.gov |
The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is the head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), [1] an agency within the United States Department of the Treasury. [2]
The office of Commissioner was created by Congress as part of the Revenue Act of 1862. [3] Section 7803 of the Internal Revenue Code [4] provides for the appointment of a Commissioner of Internal Revenue to administer and supervise the execution and application of the internal revenue laws. The Commissioner is appointed by the President of the United States, with the consent of the U.S. Senate, for a five-year term. [5]
Daniel Werfel is the current Commissioner of Internal Revenue, having been sworn in on March 13, 2023. Werfel is the 50th Commissioner to serve in the position since it was created. [6]
The Commissioner's duties include administering, managing, conducting, directing, and supervising "the execution and application of the internal revenue laws or related statutes and tax conventions to which the United States is a party" and advising the President on the appointment and removal of a Chief Counsel of the IRS. Treasury Order 150-10 states in relevant part: "The Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall be responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Internal Revenue laws." [7] The Commissioner reports to the Secretary of the Treasury through the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. [8]
One of the Commissioner's most important responsibilities with respect to the internal revenue laws is setting the Treasury Regulations administered by the IRS. The U.S. Treasury Regulations provide (in part):
However, the General Counsel of the Department of the Treasury has "the authority to approve all regulations pertaining to the internal revenue laws, including the authority to ratify and approve, where necessary, any such regulations previously issued." [10]
The following lists Commissioners of Internal Revenue, in chronological order: [11]
Image | Name | Term start | Term end |
---|---|---|---|
George S. Boutwell | July 17, 1862 | March 4, 1863 | |
Joseph J. Lewis (Acting) | March 5, 1863 | March 17, 1863 | |
Joseph J. Lewis | March 18, 1863 | June 30, 1865 | |
William Orton | July 1, 1865 | October 31, 1865 | |
Edward A. Rollins | November 1, 1865 | March 10, 1869 | |
Columbus Delano | March 11, 1869 | October 31, 1870 | |
John Watkinson Douglass (Acting) | November 1, 1870 | January 2, 1871 | |
Alfred Pleasonton | January 3, 1871 | August 8, 1871 | |
John Watkinson Douglass | August 9, 1871 | May 14, 1875 | |
Daniel D. Pratt | May 15, 1875 | August 1, 1876 | |
Green B. Raum | August 2, 1876 | April 30, 1883 | |
Henry C. Rogers (Acting) | May 1, 1883 | May 10, 1883 | |
John Jay Knox (Acting) | May 11, 1883 | May 20, 1883 | |
Walter Evans | May 21, 1883 | March 19, 1885 | |
Joseph S. Miller | March 20, 1885 | March 20, 1889 | |
John W. Mason | March 21, 1889 | April 18, 1893 | |
Joseph S. Miller | April 19, 1893 | November 26, 1896 | |
William St. John Forman | November 27, 1896 | December 31, 1897 | |
Nathan B. Scott | January 1, 1898 | February 28, 1899 | |
George W. Wilson | March 1, 1899 | November 27, 1900 | |
Robert Williams Jr. (Acting) | November 28, 1900 | December 19, 1900 | |
John W. Yerkes | December 20, 1900 | April 30, 1907 | |
Henry C. Rogers (Acting) | May 1, 1907 | June 4, 1907 | |
John G. Capers | June 5, 1907 | August 31, 1909 | |
Royal E. Cabell | September 1, 1909 | April 27, 1913 | |
William H. Osborn | April 28, 1913 | September 25, 1917 | |
Daniel Calhoun Roper | September 26, 1917 | March 31, 1920 | |
William M. Williams | April 1, 1920 | April 11, 1921 | |
Millard F. West (Acting) | April 12, 1921 | May 26, 1921 | |
David H. Blair | May 27, 1921 | May 31, 1929 | |
Robert H. Lucas | June 1, 1929 | August 15, 1930 | |
H. F. Mires (Acting) | August 16, 1930 | August 19, 1930 | |
David Burnet | August 20, 1930 | May 15, 1933 | |
Pressly R. Baldridge (Acting) | May 16, 1933 | June 5, 1933 | |
Guy T. Helvering | June 6, 1933 | October 8, 1943 | |
Robert E. Hannegan | October 9, 1943 | January 22, 1944 | |
Harold N. Graves (Acting) | January 23, 1944 | February 29, 1944 | |
Joseph D. Nunan Jr. | March 1, 1944 | June 30, 1947 | |
George J. Schoeneman | July 1, 1947 | July 31, 1951 | |
John B. Dunlap | August 1, 1951 | November 18, 1952 | |
John Stephens Graham | November 19, 1952 | January 19, 1953 | |
Justin F. Winkle (Acting) | January 20, 1953 | February 3, 1953 | |
T. Coleman Andrews | February 4, 1953 | October 31, 1955 | |
O. Gordon Delk (Acting) | November 1, 1955 | December 4, 1955 | |
Russell C. Harrington | December 5, 1955 | September 30, 1958 | |
O. Gordon Delk (Acting) | October 1, 1958 | November 4, 1958 | |
Dana Latham | November 5, 1958 | January 20, 1961 | |
Charles I. Fox (Acting) | January 21, 1961 | February 6, 1961 | |
Mortimer Caplin | February 7, 1961 | July 10, 1964 | |
Bernard M. Harding (Acting) | July 11, 1964 | January 24, 1965 | |
Sheldon S. Cohen | January 25, 1965 | January 20, 1969 | |
William H. Smith (Acting) | January 21, 1969 | March 31, 1969 | |
Randolph W. Thrower | April 1, 1969 | June 22, 1971 | |
Harold T. Swartz (Acting) | June 23, 1971 | August 5, 1971 | |
Johnnie Mac Walters | August 6, 1971 | April 30, 1973 | |
Raymond F. Harless (Acting) | May 1, 1973 | May 25, 1973 | |
Donald C. Alexander | May 25, 1973 | February 26, 1977 | |
William E. Williams (Acting) | February 27, 1977 | May 4, 1977 | |
Jerome Kurtz | May 5, 1977 | October 31, 1980 | |
William E. Williams (Acting) | December 1, 1980 | March 13, 1981 | |
Roscoe L. Egger Jr. | March 14, 1981 | April 30, 1986 | |
James I. Owens (Acting) | May 1, 1986 | August 3, 1986 | |
Lawrence B. Gibbs | August 4, 1986 | March 4, 1989 | |
Michael J. Murphy (Acting) | March 5, 1989 | July 4, 1989 | |
Fred T. Goldberg, Jr. | July 5, 1989 | February 2, 1992 | |
Shirley D. Peterson | February 3, 1992 | January 20, 1993 | |
Michael P. Dolan (Acting) | January 21, 1993 | May 26, 1993 | |
Margaret Milner Richardson | May 27, 1993 | May 31, 1997 | |
Michael P. Dolan (Acting) | June 1, 1997 | November 12, 1997 | |
Charles O. Rossotti | November 13, 1997 | November 6, 2002 | |
Bob Wenzel (Acting) | November 7, 2002 | April 30, 2003 | |
Mark W. Everson | May 1, 2003 | May 4, 2007 | |
Kevin M. Brown (Acting) | May 5, 2007 | September 9, 2007 | |
Linda E. Stiff [12] [13] (Acting) | September 10, 2007 | March 24, 2008 | |
Douglas H. Shulman | March 24, 2008 | November 9, 2012 | |
Steven T. Miller (Acting) | November 10, 2012 | May 22, 2013 | |
Daniel Werfel (Acting) | May 22, 2013 [14] | December 23, 2013 | |
John Koskinen | December 23, 2013 | November 9, 2017 | |
David Kautter (Acting) | November 13, 2017 | October 1, 2018 | |
Charles P. Rettig | October 1, 2018 | November 12, 2022 | |
Doug O'Donnell (Acting) | November 13, 2022 | March 13, 2023 | |
Daniel Werfel | March 13, 2023 | present |
The United States of America has separate federal, state, and local governments with taxes imposed at each of these levels. Taxes are levied on income, payroll, property, sales, capital gains, dividends, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2020, taxes collected by federal, state, and local governments amounted to 25.5% of GDP, below the OECD average of 33.5% of GDP.
A tax lien is a lien which is imposed upon a property by law in order to secure the payment of taxes. A tax lien may be imposed for the purpose of collecting delinquent taxes which are owed on real property or personal property, or it may be imposed as a result of a failure to pay income taxes or it may be imposed as a result of a failure to pay other taxes.
The United States Tax Court is a federal trial court of record established by Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, section 8 of which provides that the Congress has the power to "constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court". The Tax Court specializes in adjudicating disputes over federal income tax, generally prior to the time at which formal tax assessments are made by the Internal Revenue Service.
In the United States of America, an Enrolled Agent (EA) is a tax advisor, who is a federally authorized tax practitioner which is empowered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Enrolled Agents represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for tax issues that include audits, collections, and appeals.
The United States federal government and most state governments impose an income tax. They are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) applies at the federal and some state levels.
The business mileage reimbursement rate is an optional standard mileage rate used in the United States for purposes of computing the allowable business deduction, for Federal income tax purposes under the Internal Revenue Code, at 26 U.S.C. § 162, for the business use of a vehicle. Under the law, the taxpayer for each year is generally entitled to deduct either the actual expense amount, or an amount computed using the standard mileage rate, whichever is greater.
A tax protester, in the United States, is a person who denies that he or she owes a tax based on the belief that the Constitution of the United States, statutes, or regulations do not empower the government to impose, assess or collect the tax. The tax protester may have no dispute with how the government spends its revenue. This differentiates a tax protester from a tax resister, who seeks to avoid paying a tax because the tax is being used for purposes with which the resister takes issue.
The Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, also known as Taxpayer Bill of Rights III, resulted from hearings held by the United States Congress in 1996 and 1997. The Act included numerous amendments to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The bill was passed in the Senate unanimously, and was seen as a major reform of the Internal Revenue Service.
Tax protesters in the United States have advanced a number of arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally claim that certain statutes fail to create a duty to pay taxes, that such statutes do not impose the income tax on wages or other types of income claimed by the tax protesters, or that provisions within a given statute exempt the tax protesters from a duty to pay.
The Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, also called the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), is an office within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, reporting directly to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The office is under the supervision and direction of the National Taxpayer Advocate, who is appointed by the Secretary of Treasury.
Tommy Keith Cryer, also known as Tom Cryer, was an attorney in Shreveport, Louisiana who was charged with and later acquitted of willful failure to file U.S. Federal income tax returns in a timely fashion. In a case in United States Tax Court, Cryer contested a determination by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service that he owed $1.7 million in taxes and penalties. Before the case could come to trial, Cryer died June 4, 2012. He was 62.
A tax levy under United States federal law is an administrative action by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under statutory authority, generally without going to court, to seize property to satisfy a tax liability. The levy "includes the power of distraint and seizure by any means". The general rule is that no court permission is required for the IRS to execute a tax levy.
The 861 argument is a statutory argument used by tax protesters in the United States, which interprets a portion of the Internal Revenue Code as invalidating certain applications of income tax. The argument has uniformly been held by courts to be incorrect, and persons who have cited the argument as a basis for refusing to pay income taxes have been penalized, and in some cases jailed.
A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax claiming that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. Tax protesters are different from tax resisters, who refuse to pay taxes as a protest against a government or its policies, or a moral opposition to taxation in general, not out of a belief that the tax law itself is invalid. The United States has a large and organized culture of people who espouse such theories. Tax protesters also exist in other countries.
Tax protester arguments are arguments made by people, primarily in the United States, who contend that tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax law. It is an agency of the Department of the Treasury and led by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers; pursuing and resolving instances of erroneous or fraudulent tax filings; and overseeing various benefits programs, including the Affordable Care Act.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of administrative arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates regulations enacted by responsible agencies –primarily the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)– tasked with carrying out the statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally include claims that the administrative agency fails to create a duty to pay taxes, or that its operation conflicts with some other law, or that the agency is not authorized by statute to assess or collect income taxes, to seize assets to satisfy tax claims, or to penalize persons who fail to file a return or pay the tax.
The IRS Return Preparer Initiative was an effort by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to regulate the tax return preparation industry in the United States. The purpose of the initiative is to improve taxpayer compliance and service by setting professional standards for and providing support to the tax preparation industry. Starting January 1, 2011 and, until the program was suspended in January 2013, the initiative required all paid federal tax return preparers to register with the IRS and to obtain an identification number, called a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN). The multi-year phase-in effort called for certain paid tax return preparers to pass a competency test and to take annual continuing education courses. The ethics provisions found in Treasury Department's Circular 230 were extended to all paid tax return preparers. Preparers who have their PTINs, pass the test and complete education credits were to have a new designation: Registered Tax Return Preparer.
The Internal Revenue Manual (IRM) is an official compendium of internal guidelines for personnel of the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Daniel I. Werfel is an American government official who has served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue since March 2023. He was formerly a Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) from 2014 to 2023, acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue in 2013, and Controller of the Office of Management and Budget from 2011 to 2013.
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