Oversight board hunts for new IRS commissioner

The Treasury Department and the independent board that oversees the Internal Revenue Service are reviewing potential candidates for the job of IRS commissioner in the hopes of sending names to the White House within the next month. Officials are looking for applicants with leadership, communication and change management skills--plus a lot of patience--to replace Commissioner Charles Rossotti, whose 5-year term ends in November, Larry Levitan, head of the IRS Oversight Board, said Thursday at a House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee hearing. "It is hard to find someone who is qualified," Levitan said. "It is very hard to find someone who is also willing to take on this difficult and complex job." The next commissioner will take up a reform effort that began in 1998 with the IRS Reform and Restructuring Act. Rossotti's efforts set the agency on a course to be more customer-focused and less adversarial. Rossotti's replacement will also inherit a complex multi-billion dollar, 10-year technology modernization effort that has spent the last three years in the planning phase and is just now entering the execution phase. The search for the next commissioner began last winter, when the oversight board--created in the 1998 reform act to approve the IRS budget and to help select management-savvy commissioners--came up with a qualifications list. A key qualification, Levitan said, is experience in leading very large organizations. The board decided that the next commissioner doesn't have to come from a technology background, as Rossotti did, but should have experience in harnessing technology to make an organization successful. The board teamed up with Treasury Department officials, who agreed with the qualifications list and jointly hired Russell Reynolds, a New York-based executive search firm, to seek out candidates. The firm has put together a preliminary list for officials--private-sector individuals, some with prior government service. The board and the Treasury Department will recommend candidates to President Bush. Levitan said the board hopes that the Senate will be able to confirm a new commissioner before its August recess. The Senate will need time to consider the White House's nominee. Before that, the White House will need time to consider the board and Treasury's candidates. That's why officials hope to start sending names to the White House in the next month, Levitan said. Rossotti came to the IRS from American Management Systems, a company he helped found in 1970. Prior to that, he worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the systems analysis office. His appointment broke a trend of installing tax experts, rather than management experts, as IRS commissioner. Also on Tuesday, Rossotti appeared before the House Appropriations Treasury Subcommittee to push for a $10.4 billion budget for the IRS next year. He released statistics showing that enforcement activity at the agency, on the decline for several years, increased slightly in fiscal 2001. Observers of the IRS have worried that lower levels of enforcement activities (such as levies, liens and audits) are making more people think they can get away with cheating on their taxes.