The Social Security administrator is appointed to the newly created post of the CEO of IRS: NPR

Washington – The Social Security Administration Commissioner, Frank Bisignano, was appointed Monday as IRS CEO, making him the last member of the Trump administration to take charge of several federal agencies.

As CEO of IRS, Bisignano will fall under the secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who is currently an acting commissioner of the IRS, according to the Treasury department. It is not clear if the newly created role of Bisignano at IRS will require confirmation of the Senate.

The Treasury Department declared in a press release that Bisignano would be responsible for the supervision of all the daily operations of the IRS while continuing to play its role as Social Security Administration Commissioner.

Bessent said in a press release that IRS and SSA “share many of the same technological and customer service objectives. This makes Mr. Bisignano a natural choice for this role”.

The decision to install Bisignano at IRS adds another layer to the leadership mixture that has occurred to the agency since the start of Trump’s mandate. Bessent was appointed acting commissioner in August after Trump withdrew the former American representative Billy long from the role less than two months after his confirmation and appointed him ambassador to Iceland.

The four interim commissioners who preceded a long time in the work included the one who resigned from an agreement between the IRS and the Ministry of Internal Security to share the tax data of immigrants with immigration and the application of customs and another whose appointment led to fighting between former advisor Elon Musk and Bessent.

Mike Kaercher, deputy director of the New York University School of Law Tax Center, underlines a possible conflict of interest in Bisignano occupying leadership roles at SSA and IRS. “Put the same person in charge of IRS and SSA creates a conflict of interest when the SSA wishes to access the data of legally protected taxpayers,” said Kaercher.

With two -day jobs, Bisignano joins a number of other Trump administration officials to wear several hats, including Bessent, Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, Jamieson Greer and Russell Vought.

The defenders of IRS and Social Security expressed themselves in favor of the new appointment.

Kathleen Romig, director of the social security policy and the disability policy at the center of budget and political priorities, stressed that Bisignano was appointed to a position which seems to avoid the approval of the congress.

“If Trump’s administrator asked for the Senate’s advice and consent, would they really like the same person who directs the greatest government program and supervises the implementation of the new extraordinarily complex tax law?” She said on the Bluesky Social Media application.

And Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a defense group for SSA defenders and future retirees, said that “the divided attention of Bisignano will create a bottleneck that makes the commissioner inevitable who is even more difficult to correct. Confirmed a sub-commissioner.”

Bisignano has been CEO of FISERV, a technology company for payments and financial services, since 2020. He has been a single corporate defender to protect LGBTQ + people against discrimination.