WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The acting commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is being replaced after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complained to President Donald Trump that the latest leader of the agency had been installed without his knowledge and at the behest of billionaire Elon Musk, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The report cited five people with knowledge of the change and the discussions that precipitated it.
Bessent believed that Musk had done an end run around him to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, even though the tax collection agency reports to Bessent, the newspaper said.
Neither the Treasury nor the IRS had any immediate comment. DOGE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pushed the appointment through White House channels, but Bessent was not consulted, according to the report, which added that Bessent got Trump’s approval to unwind the decision.
The next acting head of the IRS is expected to be the deputy secretary of the Treasury, Michael Faulkender, the New York Times reported. He would hold the role until the president’s nominee for the permanent role, former Congressman Billy Long, if approved by the Senate, takes over.
Trump picked Shapley on Tuesday following the departure of the previous interim head, Melanie Krause, who quit the tax-collecting agency after it struck a deal to share data with federal agents on migrants living illegally in the United States.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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