U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed on Friday that Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender has been appointed acting Internal Revenue Service commissioner, replacing longtime IRS career official Gary Shapley in the temporary role, APA reports citing Investing.
Bessent said in a posting on X that "trust must be brought back to the IRS, and I am fully confident that @TreasuryDepSec Michael Faulkender is the right man for the moment."
Shapley, who testified as a whistleblower before Congress about the agency’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes, held the job for less than three days. The IRS special agent was expected to step down once President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the IRS, former U.S. Representative Billy Long of Missouri, was confirmed by the Senate.
The New York Times (NYSE:NYT), which first reported the decision, quoted unnamed sources familiar with the matter as saying that Bessent had requested the change because Shapley had been appointed to the post on Tuesday at the behest of billionaire Elon Musk without his knowledge or consent.
Bessent said in the post that Shapley would stay at the IRS and continue a year-long reform investigation along with Joseph Ziegler, another IRS agent who alleged political interference in the Hunter Biden probe.
"Gary Shapley’s passion and thoughtfulness for approaching ways by which to create durable and lasting reforms at the IRS is essential to our work, and he remains among my most important senior advisors at the U.S. Treasury as we work together to rethink and reform the IRS," Bessent said.
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