Obama to name IRS acting chief this week

President Obama plans to appoint a new acting IRS commissioner this week, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The new commissioner will replace Steven Miller, who resigned Wednesday amid the fallout over the IRS’s singling out of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

The White House still has yet to say when it will nominate a permanent commissioner to replace Doug Shulman, who left the office late last year. Miller, a 25-year IRS veteran and a former deputy commissioner, became acting chief at the end of Shulman’s term.

{mosads}Lawmakers have sharply criticized both Miller and Shulman, who found out about the agency’s targeting of Tea Party organizations last year but declined to tell Congress.

Miller will still testify on Friday before the House Ways and Means Committee, while Shulman is expected to testify next week.

Their testimony will come after a Treasury inspector general’s report found that ineffective IRS management led to both the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups and requests for unnecessary information, like donor lists. Tea Party groups also faced long wait times for approval of their 501(c)(4) status requests.

Obama’s naming of a new acting commissioner will come as the White House continues to try to regain its footing after the uproar over the IRS, continued fallout from last year’s attack in Benghazi, Libya, and this week’s revelation that the Justice Department seized phone records from The Associated Press.