Larry Gibbs commented on the differences between an acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) chief counsel and a Senate-approved IRS chief counsel. William M. Paul, the current IRS acting chief counsel, was appointed on January 20 and is approaching the 210-day cap on the time an official can serve as an acting officer of an executive agency. The fact that there may have been few major problems with having an acting chief counsel rather than a Senate-approved nominee is likely attributable to Paul’s relationship with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, which predates Paul’s elevation to acting chief counsel, said Gibbs, who served as acting chief counsel of the IRS in the 1970s and as IRS commissioner in the 1980s. Little should have changed at the chief counsel’s office after the last Senate-confirmed appointee, William J. Wilkins, left and Paul took over, but one problem that could be caused by not having a political appointee as chief counsel would be a delay in something like a major organizational change, Gibbs said, adding that the lack of a political appointee could also have a substantial impact in the event of late December tax reform — particularly if any of the proposed changes are retroactive. This impact flows from the role of chief counsel’s office, alongside Treasury, in promulgating guidance to implement tax reform, he said, adding that the upcoming filing season could also be affected in that event. Both taxpayers and tax return preparers would need the guidance to apply any provisions affecting the 2017 tax year for a filing season that would begin just a few weeks after the tax reform bill passed, he said.