Congressional Republicans are hungry for an overhaul of the Internal Revenue Service, and they see former Rep. Billy Long, who Donald Trump picked to lead the agency, as someone who can make that happen.
Long, a former Missouri congressman and auctioneer, has a history of supporting legislation to abolish the IRS. His confirmation would require Trump to break with the long-standing tradition of allowing the agency’s commissioner to finish out their five-year term.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans were unbothered by the prospect of Trump firing the current head of the IRS. They were mostly just excited for Long to pursue some of their priorities.
“Trump’s probably looking for guys and gals who are gonna shake things up, and that’s certainly in Billy’s DNA. And who knows? Maybe he’ll even auction off a few buildings along the way,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, who ran against Long in a 2022 Missouri senate primary. He added that he thought “a top-to-bottom review, and probably an audit of the IRS, ironically, would be a good thing.”
Several Senate Republicans who would ultimately vote on whether to confirm Long said they knew little about him or his goals for the agency. While in Congress, Long never served on a finance or taxation committee, and afterward he worked as a tax adviser for businesses, peddling a pandemic-era employee-retention tax credit.
But many Republicans were excited by the prospect of Long in the role — even Sen. Josh Hawley, who Long expressed resentment toward after Hawley endorsed one of his opponents in his 2022 senate primary, said he thought the former congressman would “work very hard at the job” and that he could bring change to the agency.
“We can start by cutting those 87,000 IRS agents who this administration has hired,” Hawley said, using a popular but misleading talking point used by Republicans about an infusion of money to the agency passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. “The IRS is such a quagmire. I think this is an opportunity to cut all kinds of things. I’m sure there’ll be no lack of things to do.”
The Trump transition team did not respond for comment, but the president-elect has previously expressed interest in abolishing the federal income tax, a proposal Long supported while in Congress. In his announcement Wednesday, Trump did not mention specific goals that he or Long had for the agency. Instead, he mentioned Long’s experience as a tax adviser and said, “Taxpayers and the wonderful employees of the IRS will love having Billy at the helm.”
Congressional action would be needed to defund or make significant cuts to the IRS, and abolishing income taxes would require Congress to overturn the 16th Amendment, which allows the federal government to collect income taxes. Congress would also have to come up with a way to replace the federal government’s main source of revenue.
Sen. Pete Ricketts said he’d like to see the agency become more “efficient and effective,” but that abolishing income taxes or the agency itself might not be the answer: “I would be interested in seeing what he thinks we would do to be able to generate the revenue.”
Several Republicans said they’d like to see more modest steps to streamline the agency, like improving technology or making the IRS more responsive to taxpayers. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, told NOTUS that the agency’s computer system needed updating, which fellow committee member Sen. James Lankford also mentioned.
“Improving customer service, updating the software and hardware that’s there. The IRS has said for years that they have legacy hardware and software. That’s gotta get fixed,” Lankford said.
Still, some Republicans in Congress are pushing for a total overhaul of the agency.
Rep. Eric Burlison told NOTUS he thought Long’s priorities would be “to get rid of the rot, to make them more efficient, more responsive to taxpayers,” and said he still hopes Congress could fully replace income taxes with tariffs or consumption taxes. But he added, “Until we do, we are collecting income taxes, and the IRS is the agency to do that.”
Long’s appointment would require Trump to fire the current IRS commissioner, Daniel Werfel, who told the publication Tax Notes after the election that he’d prefer to finish out his term, which ends in 2027.
Rep. Andy Harris told NOTUS he would only support abolishing the IRS if it was “weaponized” or was used to target conservative groups like “the Barack Obama IRS.” (The Treasury Department’s inspector general released a report in 2017 that found left-wing groups were also improperly targeted.) He said the agency had been performing “better” lately, and that he mostly wanted efficiency reforms.
“I think we have an adequate number of personnel. I’m not for expanding it any more,” Harris told NOTUS. “They have to just do more with what they have, and that’s the way every business works, and that’s how the IRS should work.”
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Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.