Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano has been tapped to serve in the newly created position of CEO of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), while continuing to serve as the head of the SSA.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Bisignano’s new role on Monday, noting that the role includes managing the agency and overseeing all day-to-day IRS operations. Bisignano will report directly to Bessent, who also serves as the acting commissioner of the IRS.
“Frank is a businessman with an exceptional track record of driving growth and efficiency in the private and now public sector,” Bessent said in a press release.
“Under his leadership at the SSA, he has already made important and substantial progress, and we are pleased that he will bring this expertise to the IRS as we sharpen our focus on collections, privacy, and customer service in order to deliver better outcomes for hardworking Americans,” he added.
Bisignano has recently touted key milestones in SSA’s ongoing efforts to improve customer service, including technology enhancements to the agency’s phone platform and website.
In the Treasury Department’s press release, the department said that the IRS and SSA “share many of the same technological and customer service goals,” adding that this “makes Mr. Bisignano a natural choice for this role.”
However, his appointment to a second role drew criticism from many, including Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works.
“Bisignano’s divided attention will create a bottleneck that makes the inevitable problems that arise even harder to correct,” Altman said.
“Never in Social Security’s 90-year history has a commissioner held a second job. Bisiginano’s new role will leave a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency, especially since the Republican Senate hasn’t even confirmed a deputy commissioner,” Altman added.
Bisignano joins several other Trump administration officials who hold multiple roles, including Bessent, Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, Jamieson Greer, and Russell Vought.