Accounting
IRS Commissioner Billy Long plans implementation of Trump tax bill
The new Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Billy Long, explained his plans for the IRS and the new tax bill during his first public talk as IRS commissioner Monday during the National Association of Enrolled Agents’ tax summit.
Long is the 51st commissioner of the IRS and was
He noted that this past tax season went well despite predictions of turmoil before he was confirmed and sworn in after a long wait. “We’ve got a lot of great people that work there,” he said.
Long is a former congressman and auctioneer who plans to apply his skills to the IRS, although he doesn’t have a tax background. He grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and went to a real estate school. When he graduated, interest rates were so high that he found it was difficult to sell a house. He signed up for the Missouri Auction School, which he had read in a Newsweek article was referred to as the “Harvard of auctioneering.”
“I learned how to auction real estate, and I had a 32-year career as a real estate broker, and 31 years as an auctioneer,” he said. “I come to the IRS with a diversified background. Then I ran for office because I thought it was important for somebody that’s actually signed the front of a check to go to Congress, not a career politician. I said, I’ll go six terms, go home, and that’s what I did. I did take a shot in the Senate because Roy Blunt was retiring the same year that I came out of Congress.” However, he admitted he came in last place among the 21 contenders.
Long was sworn in a little over a week ago and one of the first events he attended was a graduation ceremony in Georgia for IRS Criminal Investigation Unit agents.
He was asked about his plans for implementing the massive new tax bill and joked about the name.
“I bet you all never thought you’d meet Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill in person, but here I am,” he joked. “They called it the One Big, Beautiful Bill after me.”
He has been consulting with officials in the Treasury Department such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender and their employees on implementing the bill. “They had this thing going like a well oiled machine,” said Long. “They have the people in place for different parts and sections of the bill, and they have been there for a long time, and they know what they’re doing.”
He said he has been having conversations with Faulkender every week on implementation and he predicted they’re going to get it done.
“There’s a lot of provisions in there, a lot of rulemaking needs to be done,” said Long. “Every day I walk in there and I feel like I’m on a tightrope juggling. I don’t know whether to drop the ball or fall off the rope myself, but implementation is going to be key to getting the tax season started on time. I talked to one of our top guys in the IRS last week while I was down on the Atlanta visit, and I said, what’s our start date? And he said that President’s Day historically is our start date.”
The employee predicted they would need every day until then. “They have this thing down pat,” said Long. “They know what they’re doing. They know how to do it. So I’m just going to hide and watch,” he joked.
Long hopes to change the culture of the IRS. “When you get nominated for a position like this, you don’t know what to do, what to ask, what to plan for,” said Long. “My plan was to watch old YouTube videos of former IRS commissioners. And after watching a lot of these, I called President Trump one day, and I said, I would like for my hearing to be on February 2. And he said, why is that? And I said, because it’s like Groundhog Day. I’ve been going back to 1997 with [former Commissioner] Charles Rossotti. Every year, it’s the same complaints over and over and over. A lot of it, I think, is that we’re not taking advantage of our employee partners.”
He has been meeting with employees one-on-one. “I thought, how many people have ever stopped and asked the 1,533 employee partners that work in the building where I work at 1111 Constitution, and how many times has someone stopped and said, ‘What do you think? How’s your life? How’s your kids? How’s your husband’s surgery coming?’ I want to know about their lives, but I also want to know what they think.”
He arrives at the office 90 minutes early every day and schedules 10-minute meetings with employees, in six slots a day. The first woman he met had worked there for 18 years and never been in the commissioner’s office before.
“And to me, that’s stinking thinking,” said Long. “Why does the commissioner have to be the Wizard of Oz? Why does he have to be the man behind the curtain?”
He plans to open up the meetings to employees outside the building and at some point go virtual for meetings with remote employees.
He alluded to the reports of overcrowding at IRS facilities since a return-to-office order
“We’re going to put 500 people on the sixth floor, moving over from another building there in D.C.,” said Long. “I said I want to go up to the sixth floor. I want to see what it looks like. We’re going to move 500 people there. I went on that tour and I thought I went in and out of every office. I didn’t, but I tried to, and they were just shocked that the commissioner would take time to come.”
Nevertheless, the IRS has been implementing steep cutbacks, with approximately 25% of the workforce now gone as of May, according to a recent
“In real estate, when we had too many agents, we’d take one plaque for agent of the month, put two of them in a conference room, and put that plaque in there, and only one of them would come out alive,” said Long. “That’s how we pared down our people. But when you build a culture and bring everybody along… It’s not my culture. I don’t want to ram my culture down their throat, but I want them to tell me what the culture at the Internal Revenue Service is going to be. And we’re off to a great start with these 10-minute meetings. People are loving them, and I’m getting a lot of good ideas.”
Long was asked about the role of enrolled agents. “Just stay in touch with your folks at the IRS,” he advised. He offered to provide his chief of staff’s email address to the NAEA.
“What I find is when people get a hold of me and say, ‘I’ve been under audit for four years, and they can’t tell me where my audit is, who has my audit or anything,'” he said. “I want people to be able to go and get that information. I want you all to be able to go and get that information for your clients. And it’s staggering how effective the people the IRS are when you get it to the right person. I’ve had things that have dragged along for two or three years, and they can’t get a simple answer.”
He said he was recently listening in on a taxpayer call in Atlanta on a second headset and felt like crying when he overheard one call with a widow who had been repeatedly calling the IRS for help five times about her refund check. “I said, when you call her, you tell her it was her lucky day,” said Long. The commissioner happened to be listening on the other line. And he called her and said, ‘Ma’am, it was your lucky day. The commissioner was listening. I’m here to help you. We have located your refund check, and we’re getting it in the mail to you.'”
He wants to provide similar help with tax audits and said Sam Corcos, a former DOGE employee who is
“I don’t want her to have the commissioner on the line,” said Long. “I don’t want to have to call back. I don’t care about Direct File. I care about Direct Audit.”
He said Corcos is building technology to be able to trace where audits are currently stuck.
“Get our computers upgraded to where people can do that,” he said. “As far as building the culture, that’s what we need to do, is be able to get the employees where they’re in a better place, where they don’t feel like they have to look at their watch.”
He compared it to a Mickey Mouse watch with Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse holding hands. “If we can redesign it a little bit and make Walt the IRS and Mickey the taxpayer holding hands in partnership,” he said. “I want to be partners with my employees, and I want to be partners with the taxpayers. And that’s my goal.”
Long said he is an expert on UFOs and used to teach a class on them. He plans to bring a different variation of UFO to his job at the IRS. “UFO: upbeat, friendly and open,” he said. “And that’s how I want to operate with my employee partners and with taxpayers.”
Over the last few years, AI has gone from being a novelty to a mission-critical business strategy for many accountants. Innovative, forward-thinking firms are using these tools to streamline manual tasks, ensure compliance and provide the best possible service to their clients. According to the 2025 Intuit QuickBooks
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However, AI adoption is at varying levels across the industry. While nearly every firm has begun experimenting with basic AI tools, many remain in a sandbox phase, hesitant to move toward full-scale integration due to perceived complexity or costs.No matter where you may fall on the integration spectrum, the fact remains: AI is rapidly reshaping the accounting industry. If you’ve delayed AI adoption in your business, you’ll want to create a focused plan to catch up.
Time is of the essence, but don’t sacrifice strategy for speed
Firms that are ready to take the leap from casual use to deep integration may find themselves in need of accelerated adoption, but speed should not come at the cost of strategy. Identify tangible, practical ways that easy-to-use tools can impact your business through automation. Having a strong strategic focus allows firms to implement workflow changes to streamline manual tasks, ensure compliance and provide excellent service to your clients.
To begin your AI journey, here is a four-step plan that firms can use to transition from experimentation to execution, in a safe, practical manner:
Step 1: Kick off your first AI project
As is the case with many things, getting started is often the most challenging step. While enthusiasm is high, uncertainty with implementation risks can cause hesitation. The key is to lower risk by embracing AI and implementing an intentional, phased approach. Begin by weaving AI tools into high-impact, low-risk tasks, such as summarizing meeting notes, drafting client or firm-wide memos, or translating complex concepts into easy-to-understand ideas. Monitor results carefully and, if these initial attempts need adjustment, be prepared to pivot to the next use case until you can clearly demonstrate that AI systems are delivering a measurable impact on your operations. From there, you can learn from early experiences, adapt strategy, and scale appropriately to complete more complex projects.
Step 2: Dig into your AI toolkit
The marketplace is crowded with AI-powered tools that promise to do everything from enhancing your workflows to improving the customer experience. It can be hard to know which ones are worth investing your time and money. Find a trusted source like a respected peer, or leverage your professional network to help discuss the tools that may be the best fit for achieving your business goals. You can also look within the tools you’re already using to see if they offer AI-powered features, which can help ease into the transition. Additionally, look for free high-quality education to upskill your team. For example, Anthropic offers a Claude AI University that provides excellent foundational resources for moving beyond basic prompts.
Step 3: Review an AI security checklist
An important element in AI implementation is security. With AI tools needing access to firm and client data to function, it leads to questions of how the data will be protected. This makes the right AI and cybersecurity strategy critical. Firms must proactively ensure that client data remains protected from today’s increasingly sophisticated threats by embracing an established cybersecurity framework such as
Step 4: Openly discuss AI usage with your clients
Once you’ve established the best way to use AI tools that meet your firm’s needs, you’ll want to communicate all of the advantages afforded by these tools to your clients. Make sure you highlight the benefits and simultaneously ensure you are addressing any potential concerns. It’s also important to get explicit consent from all clients if you’re sharing their information with the third-party tools you may use. While this might seem like an extra step, it will go a long way toward fostering a greater level of transparency and deepen trust between you and your clients.
Don’t get left behind
Adopting AI does not have to be intimidating, expensive or overly complex. Think of it as a strategic business move that will not only keep you competitive, but will potentially free you up to focus on keeping clients happy and growing your practice. By strategically focusing on these best practices, identifying AI use cases in a phased approach, evaluating the right tools for your business, ensuring client information is secure and clearly communicating your AI strategy, you’ll be AI-ready in no time.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board met this week to discuss its projects on accounting for transfers of cryptocurrency assets and enhancing the disclosures around certain digital assets, such as stablecoins.
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During Wednesday’s meeting, FASB’s board made certain tentative decisions, according to a
At a future meeting, the board plans to consider clarifying the derecognition guidance for crypto transfer arrangements to assess whether the control of a crypto asset has been transferred.
FASB also began deliberations on the
The board decided to provide illustrative examples in Topic 230, Statement of Cash Flows, to clarify whether certain digital assets such as stablecoins can meet the definition of cash equivalents. It also decided to include the following concepts in the illustrative examples:
- Interpretive explanations that link to the current cash equivalents definition;
- The amount and composition of reserve assets; and,
- The nature of qualifying on-demand, contractual cash redemption rights directly with the issuer.
FASB plans to clarify that an entity should consider compliance with relevant laws and regulations when it’s creating a policy concerning which assets that satisfy the Master Glossary definition of the term “cash equivalents“ will be treated as cash equivalents.
“I agree with the staff suggestion to look at examples,” said FASB vice chair Hillary Salo. “From my perspective, I think that is going to help level the playing field. People have been making reasonable judgments. I agree with that. And I think that this is really going to help show those goalposts or guardrails of what types of stablecoins would be in the scope of cash equivalents, and which ones would not be in the scope of cash equivalents. I certainly appreciate that approach, and I think it has the least potential impact of unintended consequences, because I do agree with my fellow board members that we shouldn’t be changing the definition of cash equivalents, and it’s a high bar to get into the cash equivalent definition.”
“I’m definitely supportive of not changing the definition of cash equivalents,” said FASB chair Richard Jones. “I believe that’s settled GAAP in a way, and we’re not really seeing a call to change it for broader issues. I am supportive of the example-based approach. The challenge with examples, though, is everybody’s going to want their exact pattern, but that’s not what we’re doing.”
The examples will explain the rationale for how digital assets such as stablecoins do or do not qualify as cash equivalents and give a roadmap for other types of digital assets with varying fact patterns to be able to apply.
“We really don’t want to be as a board facing a situation where something was a cash equivalent and then no longer is at a later date,” said Jones. “That’s not good for anyone, so keeping it as a high bar with certain rigid criteria, I think, is fine.”
Stablecoins are supposed to be pegged to fiat currencies such as U.S. dollars and thus provide more stability to investors. “In my view, while a stablecoin may meet the accounting definition established for cash equivalents, not every one of those stablecoins in the cash equivalent classification represents the same level of risk,” said FASB member Joyce Joseph.
She noted that the capital markets recognize the distinctions and have established a Stablecoin Stability Assessment Framework to evaluate a stablecoin’s ability to maintain its peg to a fiat currency. Such assessments look at the legal and regulatory framework associated with the stablecoin, and provide investors with information that could enable them to do forward-looking assessments about the stability of the stablecoin.
“However, for an investor to consider and utilize such information for a company analysis the financial statement disclosures would need to include information about the stablecoin itself,” Joseph added. “In outreach, the staff learned that investors supported classifying certain stablecoins as cash equivalents when transparent information is available about the entities at which the reserve assets are held. Therefore, in my view, taking all of this into consideration a relevant and informative company disclosure would include providing investors with the name of the stablecoin and the amount of the stablecoin that is classified as a cash equivalent, so investors can independently assess the liquidity risks more meaningfully and more comprehensively by utilizing broader information that is available in the capital markets and its emerging information.”
Such information could include the issuer, reserves, governance and management, she noted, so investors would get a more holistic look at the risks that holding the stablecoin would entail for a given company.
The board decided to require all entities to disclose the significant classes and related amounts of cash equivalents on an annual basis for each period that a statement of financial position is presented.
Entities should apply the amendments related to the classification of certain digital assets as cash equivalents on a modified prospective basis as of the beginning of the annual reporting period in the year of adoption.
FASB decided that entities should apply the amendments related to the disclosure of the significant classes and amounts of cash equivalents on a prospective basis as of the date of the most recent statement of financial position presented in the period of adoption.
The board will allow early adoption in both interim and annual reporting periods in which financial statements have not been issued or made available for issuance.
FASB also decided to permit entities to adopt the amendments to be illustrated in the examples related to the classification of certain digital assets as cash equivalents without the need to perform a preferability assessment as described in Topic 250, Accounting Changes and Error Corrections.
The board directed the staff to draft a proposed accounting standards update to be voted on by written ballot. The proposed update will have a 90-day comment period.
Senators introduced several pieces of tax-related legislation this week, including measures aimed at improving customer service at the Internal Revenue Service, cracking down on tax evasion and curbing the carried interest tax break, in addition to efforts in the House to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act.
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Senators Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and Mark Warner, D-Virginia, teamed up on introducing a bipartisan bill, the
The bill would establish a dashboard to inform taxpayers of backlogs and wait times; expand electronic access to information and refunds; expand callback technology and online accounts; and inform individuals facing economic hardship about collection alternatives.
“Taxpayers deserve a simple, stress-free experience when dealing with the IRS,” Cassidy said in a statement Wednesday. “This bill makes the process quicker and easier for taxpayers to get the information they need.”
He also mentioned the bill during a
“I’m happy to meet with the team … and do all I can to make it as good as you want it to be,” said Bisignano.
“My bill would equip the IRS with the legislative mandate to create an online dashboard so that taxpayers can monitor average call wait time and budget time accordingly,” said Cassidy. He noted that the bill would allow a callback for taxpayers that might need to wait longer than five minutes to speak to a representative, and establish a program to identify and support taxpayers struggling to make ends meet by providing information about alternative payment methods, such as installments, partial payments and offers in compromise.
“I know people are kind of desperate and don’t know where to turn for cash, so I think this could really ease anxiety,” he added. “This legislation is bipartisan and is likely to pass this Congress.”
Cassidy and Warner
“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get basic answers from the IRS — and in the last year, those challenges have only gotten worse,” Warner said in a statement. “I am glad to reintroduce this bipartisan legislation on Tax Day to ease some of this frustration by increasing clear communication and making IRS resources more readily available.”
Stop CHEATERS Act
Also on Tax Day, a group of Senate Democrats and an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats teamed up to introduce the Stop Corporations and High Earners from Avoiding Taxes and Enforce the Rules Strictly (Stop CHEATERS) Act.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, joined with Senators Angus King, I-Maine, Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island. The bill would provide additional funding for the IRS to strengthen and expand tax collection services and systems and crack down on tax cheating by the wealthy.
“Wealthy tax cheats and scofflaw corporations are stealing billions and billions from the American people by refusing to pay what they legally owe, and far too many of them are getting a free pass because Republicans gutted the enforcement capacity of the IRS,” Wyden said in a statement. “A rich tax cheat who shelters mountains of cash among a web of shell companies and passthroughs is likelier to be struck by lightning than face an IRS audit, and Republicans want to keep it that way. This bill is about making sure the IRS has the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax cheats while improving customer service for the vast majority of American taxpayers who follow the law every year.”
Earlier this week. Wyden also
The Stop CHEATERS Act would provide the IRS with additional funding for tax enforcement focused upon high-income tax evasion, technology operations support, systems modernization, and taxpayer services like free tax-payer assistance.
“As Congress seeks ways to fund much-needed policy priorities and address our growing national debt, there is one common sense solution that should have unanimous bipartisan support: let’s enforce the tax laws already on the books,” said King in a statement. “Our legislation will make sure the IRS has the resources it needs to confront the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid – while ensuring that our tax enforcement professionals are focused on the high-income earners who account for the most tax evasion. This is a serious problem with an easy solution; let’s pass this legislation and make sure every American pays what they owe in taxes.”
Carried interest
Wyden, King and Whitehouse also teamed up on another bill Thursday to close the carried interest tax break for hedge fund managers that
Carried interest is a form of compensation received by a fund manager in exchange for investment management services, according to a
Under the bill, the
“Our tax code is rigged to favor ultra-wealthy investors who know how to game the system to dodge paying a fair share, and there is no better example of how it works in practice than the carried interest loophole,” Wyden said in a statement. “For several decades now we’ve had a tax system that rewards the accumulation of wealth by the rich while punishing middle-class wage earners, and the effect of that system has been the strangulation of prosperity and opportunity for everybody but the ultra-wealthy. There are a lot of problems to fix to restore fairness and common sense to our tax code, and closing the carried interest loophole is a great place to start.”
Repealing Corporate Transparency Act
The House Financial Services Committee is also planning to markup a bill next Tuesday that would fully repeal the Corporate Transparency Act, which has already been significantly
If enacted, the repeal would eliminate beneficial ownership reporting requirements, removing a transparency measure designed to help law enforcement and national security officials identify who is behind U.S. companies.
“This repeal would turn the United States back into one of the easiest places in the world to set up anonymous shell companies, something Congress worked for years to fix,” said Erica Hanichak, deputy director of the FACT Coalition, in a statement. “These entities are routinely used to facilitate corruption, financial crime, and abuse. Rolling back the CTA doesn’t just weaken transparency, it signals to bad actors around the world that the U.S. is once again open for illicit business.”
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