Trust Still Broken at IRS, Leaving Rettig in Messaging Muddle

A tax collector is never going to be loved.

Former IRS commissioner John Koskinen remembers then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin telling him near the end of his term, “There isn’t any third grader who said ‘when I grow up, I want to be the IRS commissioner.’”

But public embarrassments and messaging missteps have tarnished the IRS’s image. A Gallup Poll conducted in September found just 37% of Americans thought the IRS was doing an excellent or good job, down from 50% in a poll conducted in April 2019. Even among Democrats, only half said that the agency ...