One day after President Obama accepted the resignation of Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Steven T. Miller, a replacement is already being talked up. President Obama is expected to name 42-year-old Daniel Werfel to the position.
Werfel was named as Controller of Office of Federal Financial Management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by the President in July 2009. Prior to that appointment, he had served in several roles at the OMB: as Deputy Controller; Chief of the Financial Integrity and Analysis Branch; budget examiner in OMB’s Education Branch; and as a policy analyst in OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
An attorney by trade, Werfel also served as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. He holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Duke University, a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Bachelors Degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.
Werfel is generally considered well-liked in Washington. Even though he was nominated by President Obama to his most recent position, he was a fixture in the OMB under former President Bush, gaining bipartisanship support. With that in mind, while it is mostly unheard of for an Acting IRS Commissioner to be named as IRS Commissioner, there are rumors that Werfel had been discussed as a possible replacement for former Commissioner Doug Shulman.
I’ll have more as the story unfolds.
