Internal Revenue Service

The record

Compiled by the MrScandal desk from the documents below · Desk editor Gustavs Ērkšķis-Kreicbergs · Nov 9, 2026

The Internal Revenue Service is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It carries out the Treasury Secretary's authority to administer and enforce the internal revenue laws under section 7801 of the Internal Revenue Code. Its roots go back to July 1862, when Congress created the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to run the Civil War tax system, and the agency took its current name on July 9, 1953.

Its own record outside the Wesley Snipes prosecution is administrative and judicial. In May 2013 the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported that inappropriate criteria had been used to identify tax-exempt applications for review. At the U.S. Supreme Court the IRS lost CIC Services v. IRS in 2021, when the justices held that a suit to enjoin an IRS reporting notice is not barred by the Anti-Injunction Act, and won Polselli v. IRS in 2023 over its summons notice rules.

The Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 brought the agency's most comprehensive reorganization in nearly half a century. For fiscal 2025 the IRS reported $5.3 trillion in gross tax collections and 271.4 million tax returns and other forms processed. As of November 2026 its website lists Frank Bisignano, Commissioner of Social Security since May 2025, as the IRS's first chief executive officer, with the commissioner's post shown as vacant.

Roles and honours on the record

• 1862 Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue established under the Department of the Treasury; George S. Boutwell first commissioner source
• as of 2026 Bureau of the Department of the Treasury administering the internal revenue laws under section 7801 of the Internal Revenue Code source
• as of 2026 Led by Frank Bisignano, the IRS's first Chief Executive Officer source