Trump announces nominee to lead the IRS

President Trump is nominating California tax lawyer Charles Rettig to be commissioner of the IRS, the White House said Thursday.

The nomination comes as the IRS works to implement the new tax-cut bill that Trump signed in December.

Rettig has experience representing clients before the IRS and the Justice Department’s tax division. He also served as chairman of the IRS Advisory Council, has served on advisory boards in California and serves as vice chairman of the administration of the American Bar Association’s taxation section.

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Rettig’s background as a tax lawyer is different from that of many of the more recent IRS commissioners, who came from management backgrounds.

He is being nominated to serve the remainder of the five-year term that started Nov. 12.

The previous Senate-confirmed IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, left the agency in November when his term ended.

Koskinen was disliked by many Republicans in Congress, who disapproved of his handling of congressional investigations into the IRS’s handling of conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status. Members of the House Freedom Caucus sought to impeach Koskinen, but their effort was unsuccessful.

Since November, David Kautter has been serving as acting IRS commissioner while also serving as assistant secretary for tax policy in the Treasury Department.