Former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Larry Gibbs provided his perspective on the challenges the agency will likely face in searching for a new Commissioner at the end of John Koskinen's term in 2017. Even if House Republicans are unsuccessful in their bid to impeach Koskinen, "I would find it difficult to recommend that anyone consider serving in the commissioner's position today unless they are willing to take an unusual -- some would say an unconscionable -- level of [reputational] risk," Gibbs said, pointing to both the political climate and resource constraints the agency faces.

Gibbs recalled how he came to the IRS commissioner's job after a challenging time for the agency in the mid 1980s. "The outgoing commissioner [Roscoe L. Egger Jr.] knew me, and the then-secretary of the Treasury, [James] Baker, and I had mutual friends who put the two of us together to discuss the possibility that I might be considered for the commissioner's position. I had served as an appointee at the IRS previously during the Nixon administration, so I initially was skeptical about returning, but Jim Baker was very persuasive, and it was a very different time when compared to the Nixon days and today," Gibbs said. Highlighting the potential difficulty of recruiting a commissioner in 2017, Gibbs added that, "with present House attempts to censure or impeach the present commissioner, the question is likely to become whether qualified individuals would be willing to consider serving in the commissioner's position."

This article also appeared in Tax Notes on August 22, 2016.