Statement on nominations for the IRS Advisory Council

The IRS announced recently announced that it is accepting applications for the 2025 Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC), including nominees for a new subcommittee focused on fairness in tax administration. The IRSAC serves as an advisory body to the IRS commissioner and agency leadership.

In response to this announcement, the Tax Law Center at NYU Law released the following statement from Executive Director Chye-Ching Huang:

The creation of a subcommittee on fairness in tax administration is encouraging and consistent with our recommendations, but the agency has a mixed record in attracting and appointing candidates to the Advisory Council who have real-world experience with the stated focus of this subcommittee, “issues of fairness in tax administration for low-income communities, communities of color and other historically underserved populations.”

Instead of limiting the candidate pool to veteran paid tax professionals who are usually very well represented on the Council — and do not always reflect racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of tax filers — IRS should also recognize other kinds of expertise relevant in the challenges facing these communities, and consider early or mid-career candidates who might otherwise be left out of consideration. IRS has made some improvements since we first made this recommendation in 2021, and should continue to do so. For that reason, we also welcome that this IRS call for nominations emphasizes that nominees from a wide range of backgrounds would be qualified for service on IRSAC. It’s also worth noting that IRSAC has been a pipeline for candidates for leadership roles at IRS, another reason why its composition is important.

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