Werfel is not without experience; he already had a brief stint as acting IRS commissioner in 2013 under the Obama administration, where he navigated the multi-week government shutdown. Prior to this, he worked as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Controller, where he oversaw the implementation of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Democrats want to make his confirmation a top priority while they still control the Senate. It is not yet clear whether they will continue to keep their Senate majority next year, so there's an urgency within the party to get him confirmed as quickly as possible.
Some Republicans have been highly critical of this appointment, such as Ways and Means leader Kevin Brady, who has little confidence in Werfel's ability to restore "credibility and confidence in the IRS after the agency’s shameful targeting of conservative groups."
"He didn’t succeed in 2013 and I’m concerned about whether he can succeed in 2023 and beyond," Brady said. He listed off in a statement a number of key questions that he believes Werfel should address in order to gain support for this nomination.
The statement said, "To gain support for his nomination Mr. Werfel will need to address several key questions: (1) How will he obtain the confidential taxpayer information that comprised last year’s massive criminal leak to ProPublica? (2) Does he support President Biden’s dangerous plan to surveil American bank accounts? (3) Will he cooperate with congressional oversight efforts, such as the pending requests related to the continuing large tax return backlog, Child Tax Credit administration, and the agency’s suspicious solicitation of millions of additional tax credit claims right before an election, among many others?"
Brady concludes by saying that "addressing these and many other questions will be essential for Mr. Werfel to demonstrate that he is the right choice to restore confidence in the IRS."His many years in the public sector also saw him serve under President George W. Bush, where he played a key role in the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
In the years since, Werfel spent time in the private sector. For the last nine years he has been a managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group where he helped launch the company's public sector practice.
This nomination comes as the IRS has received $80 billion in new funding, which it plans to use improve taxpayer services, enforcement, and agency technology, according to Bloomberg. Republicans have been highly critical of this additional funding.
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