Billy Long Wants to Abolish the IRS
Which made him Trump's pick for IRS commissioner. Aug 16 2025 Billy Long was an auctioneer who then served as a congressman for 12 years representing a district in southwestern Missouri. He then made a failed bid for the Senate in 2022. Having no 
Billy Long.
experience running a large organization, Trump nevertheless named him commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. After all, doesn’t Long describes himself on social media as a “certified tax and business adviser”? It was a credential bestowed on him after only a three-day course, which was revealed to The Springfield News-Leader by the tax consultancy that offered the course.
Confirmed in June, Billy Long lasted 53 days at the IRS. His removal has not been explained. He has been gotten rid of as ambassador to Iceland. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has taken the extra job of acting IRS commissioner. That makes him the eighth this year. Trump led off by prompting Biden appointee Danny Werfel to resign, a commissioner who was making progress bringing the woefully backward IRS into the 21st century.
fellow grifterSo, come and gone, but let's examine just who Trump thought appropriate to run the IRS. We can start with Mr. Long’s having
attempted to abolish the very agency he was appointed to run during his time in Congress. Not just once, but as a co-sponsor of bills in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017.
After he left Congress in 2023, he peddled some sort of "tribal" tax credit offered by an Arkansas-based oil and gas company that doesn't seem worth learning about in detail because it was phony. The IRS confirmed that there was no such credit. Long claimed in his confirmation hearing that he didn't realize the credits he was promoting were fake.
Long promoted another tax credit whose abuse has done considerable damage to the Treasury. Part of the CARES Act signed by Presidnt Trump in his first term, the employee retention plan gave tax credits to businesses of up to $10,000 per employee for keeping them on the payroll during the pandemic. It was expanded considerably by President Biden and has cost the government hundreds of billions more than originally anticipated.
Mr. Long did his part to aggravate the federal deficit by seeking companies that had not applied for the credits, encouraging and helping them to take advantage for a fee. He was not alone. It had become a business, with operators steering companies to apply for credits, all too often credits they did not deserve. Overwhelmed by the mountain of fraud that resulted, the IRS had to freeze the program in 2023. It has the enormous job of identifying and recovering tens of thousands of fraudulent payments with a staff reduced by thousands, thanks to Elon Musk's DOGE purge that does the opposite of eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse”.
Trump therefore chose to run the IRS someone who had worked against the IRS.
The mystery of Long's removal to Iceland remains. The IRS makes the point that selling nonexistent tax credits could result in criminal prosecution. It is inconceivable that Pam Bondi's Justice Department would indict one of their own, which makes giving Long a ticket to get out of town to discourage legal pursuit unlikely.
Maybe this story has a good ending. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch asks was Long's short tenure because he did the right thing? Was he jettisoned because he refused the Department of Homeland Security request to turn over the personal data of millions so the Trump administration could search for taxpaying undocumented immigrants to deport?
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