Saturday, July 18, 2026

Top Treasury Tax Official Ousted After Clashes With White House Over IRS Audits

 The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.”

—Trump in his inaugural address

 


Kenneth Kies warned that political officials risked breaching a law that limits who can influence tax enforcement


Kenneth Kies, nominee for assistant secretary for tax policy, during a Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing.
Kenneth Kies KENT NISHIMURA/BLOOMBERG NEWS

WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department’s top tax policy official was forced out of his job after he warned that the White House was at risk of violating a federal law prohibiting senior officials’ involvement in IRS audits, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Kenneth Kies, an assistant Treasury secretary and acting chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, is leaving those posts in the coming weeks. 

Kies at times clashed behind the scenes with White House officials, the people said. That included a recent meeting in which he contended that a potential White House request would violate Section 7217 of the Internal Revenue Code, one of the people said. That law prohibits the president, vice president, White House staff and certain agency heads from directly or indirectly requesting that the IRS conduct or terminate an audit or investigation of any particular taxpayer. 


Violations are punishable with up to five years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines, and IRS officials have long seen the prohibition as an important shield against the kind of political interference that President Richard Nixon tried to impose on the tax agency. 

IRS employees who receive requests they consider improper must report them to the agency’s inspector general or risk the same punishments. The 1998 law is untested in court, and enforcement in the near term would require action by the Trump administration. 

It couldn’t be determined what White House requests Kies objected to and whether the administration plans to follow through with them after Kies departs. The taxpayers at issue could include individuals, corporations or nonprofit groups. Kies represented President Trump in private practice before joining the administration last year and has been recused from matters involving the president. 

The president and some of his aides had become increasingly frustrated with Kies, some of the people said. Kies was at odds with White House officials over several issues during his tenure, including taxation of income from fantasy sports. He cited IRS rules about audits when asked questions about policies, even when officials weren’t asking about particular companies or audits, one of the people said.

Kies declined to comment. After The Wall Street Journal sought comment from the White House and the Treasury Department, several administration officials and Trump allies reached out to privately criticize Kies, arguing he was difficult to work with and didn’t do enough to advance the president’s agenda. 

Longtime Trump adviser Stephen Moore said in an interview that Treasury Department officials were irritated with Kies over how he handled reversing rules around taxing partnerships. Under Kies, the Treasury Department reversed many Biden-era rules that were part of a crackdown on tax-avoiding transactions, but not all of them. 

Kies has been at the center of Republican tax-policy circles in Washington for nearly a half-century.

He was a senior staff member for House Republicans during the writing of the landmark 1986 tax law and served as chief of staff of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation in the mid-1990s. 


For more than 20 years before joining the Trump administration, Kies ran his own tax lobbying firm, where his clients included Microsoft, cruise lines and insurance companies. He was a frequent campaign donor to Republican candidates, particularly members of the tax-writing committees. 

Trump nominated him as assistant secretary for tax policy, and the Senate confirmed him on a party-line vote in June 2025, just before Congress enacted the major tax law that extended expiring tax cuts and included some of Trump’s priorities. Kies has been leading the agency’s implementation of that law, writing regulations that defined who was eligible to get new tax breaks for tipped workers and overtime pay

In his Treasury job, Kies described himself as being pro-taxpayer, and he pushed for lighter regulations in many cases. 

Kies also spent the past year as acting chief counsel of the IRS, and the dual jobs gave him unusual authority in shaping and enforcing tax rules. 


As chief counsel, he oversaw the government’s litigation in the U.S. Tax Court and legal advice to auditors. It has been an eventful 18 months for the government’s tax lawyers, featuring a controversial agreementto provide some tax data to immigration authorities and the Justice Department’s decision to cease pending audits of Trump, his family and his businesses. 

During recent speeches, Kies focused on conservation easements, the tax-advantaged land deals that officials say have been abused by promoters and syndicators. Kies, noting frequent government victories in litigation, pushed a settlement initiative that offered reduced penalties, and he warned that people who don’t take the government deal will keep losing in court and paying more. 

“When people come in and bull— me, I actually know they’re bull—ing,” he said during a recent speech, calling out conservation easements as an example. 

Laura Loomer, the right-wing influencer whose criticisms contributed to other officials’ departures, has been among those who have criticized the administration’s approach to easements. Moore, the Trump adviser, also criticized Treasury’s handling of easements. 

Kies will become the latest senior Senate-confirmed Treasury official to leave the department after a relatively short tenure. 

Billy Long lasted less than two months as IRS commissioner, part of a carousel in the top tax-administration post. 

Michael Faulkender was deputy secretary for less than five months. Jonathan McKernan, an undersecretary, is leaving after less than a year. Brian Morrissey, the agency’s general counsel, left less than eight months after being confirmed.


Appeared in the July 17, 2026, print edition as 'Tax Official Out After White House Clash'.

Brian Schwartz is a White House economic policy reporter at The Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau. Brian previously worked at CNBC as a political finance reporter and had a stint as a journalist at Fox Business. At CNBC, he broke dozens of stories on how money intersects with politics, including pieces on President Biden being pressured to drop out of the 2024 election.

Brian's reporting at the Journal focuses on economic policies.

His story topics range from tax reform to tariffs. His coverage spans across the federal government, including pieces out of the Treasury Department, as well as Capitol Hill.


Josh Dawsey is a political investigations and enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He most recently worked as a political enterprise and investigations reporter for the Washington Post. He joined the Post in 2017 and previously covered the White House. Josh was part of a team of journalists who awon the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2022 for the newspaper’s coverage of Jan. 6 and won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the newspaper's coverage of the role of the AR-15 in American life. He also is a two-time recipient of the White House Correspondents Association award for news reporting. He is also a lecturer at the Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Josh is a proud graduate of the University of South Carolina and the enthusiastic owner of a rambunctious rescue dog named Pepper.


Richard Rubin is the U.S. tax policy reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Washington, where he focuses on the intersection of taxes, legislation, politics and economics 







THE MYSTERY MONEY POWERING TRUMP’S SECOND TERM

The president and his allies have built a network of groups financed by wealthy donors and businesses that is advancing his priorities with little public disclosure
By Marianne LeVine and Maggie Severns | Design by Kara Dapena

July 15, 2026

Presidents have always raised money from private donors—to run for office, throw inaugural balls and build presidential libraries.

But Donald Trump has turned his second term into an unprecedented fundraising blitz, raising well over half a billion dollars from wealthy donors and stashing it in a sprawling network of nonprofits, cultural institutions and committees that he and his allies control.

Companies seeking lucrative contracts or favorable policies from the administration have poured millions of dollars into these funds, which have become a key tool for Trump to pursue his political and personal priorities. He has used them to oust his political opponents, change the cultural face of the nation’s capital and boost his postpresidency legacy.

In many cases, details about where the cash is coming from or how it is being spent are shrouded in secrecy, leaving big gaps in the public’s understanding of a significant dynamic at the center of Trump’s presidency.

“President Trump is the most dominant force in American politics—from fundraising to endorsements to delivering on his commonsense America First agenda,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said.
Some Trump-linked funds remake Washington, others repurpose institutions and others have supercharged fundraising for Trump’s political agenda...

Friday, July 17, 2026

THE NEW RASPUTINS Anti-science mysticism







THE NEW RASPUTINS

Anti-science mysticism is enabling autocracy around the globe. In its new incarnation, the far right began to resemble the old far left. In some places, the two began to merge. When conspiracy theories and nonsense cures are widely accepted, the evidence-based concepts of guilt and criminality vanish quickly too.

Replace dark forces with the deep state, and how different is that story from ours? Like the Russians in 1917, we live in an era of rapid, sometimes unacknowledged, change: economic, political, demographic, educational, social, and, above all, informational. We, too, exist in a permanent cacophony, where conflicting messages, right and left, true and false, flash across our screens all the time. Traditional religions are in long-term decline. Trusted institutions seem to be failing. Techno-optimism has given way to techno-pessimism, a fear that technology now controls us in ways we can’t understand. And in the hands of the New Obscurantists—who actively promote fear of illness, fear of nuclear war, fear of death—dread and anxiety are powerful weapons.

For Americans, the merging of pseudo-spirituality with politics represents a departure from some of our deepest principles: that logic and reason lead to good government; that fact-based debate leads to good policy; that governance prospers in sunlight; and that the political order inheres in rules and laws and processes, not mystical charisma. The supporters of the New Obscurantism have also broken with the ideals of America’s Founders, all of whom considered themselves to be men of the Enlightenment. Benjamin Franklin was not only a political thinker but a scientist and a brave advocate of smallpox inoculation. George Washington was fastidious about rejecting monarchy, restricting the power of the executive, and establishing the rule of law. Later American leaders—Lincoln, Roosevelt, King—quoted the Constitution and its authors to bolster their own arguments.
By contrast, this rising international elite is creating something very different: a society in which superstition defeats reason and logic, transparency vanishes, and the nefarious actions of political leaders are obscured behind a cloud of nonsense and distraction. There are no checks and balances in a world where only charisma matters, no rule of law in a world where emotion defeats reason—only a void that anyone with a shocking and compelling story can fill.


Prediction betting enhanced by subscribing to new product!! Criminal President offers fast access to his spewing fascist bullshit manipulating markets and you can play TOO! Pay money to Criminal President & the criminal will "allow" you to turn lies into $$$$


Trump Media to Sell Faster Access to President’s Social Posts

New service will let traders and investors pay for real-time feed of Truth Social posts

President Trump broke with tradition by posting near-constant policy decisions and market-moving news on his social-media platform.

Now his media company wants traders and investors to pay for instant access to his Truth Social posts, the latest example of the first family mixing its business interests and White House affairs.



Postings for the chief of staff job more than doubled last year, with salaries that can reach $400,000.
The chief of staff role is part confidante, part concierge and part consigliere, and gives a CEO breathing space by amplifying their vision and spearheading strategic projects.
The demands of the role are incessant and vary widely, ranging from administrative tasks to strategic and operational duties, and require skills like judgement,
communications and influencing others that are tough to automate.


A growing number of corporate leaders, buckling under the stress and uncertainty of the AI age, are looking for a very human solution: A chief of staff. 

Postings for the job more than doubled last year, according to Revelio Labs, with salaries that can reach $400,000. And the number of professionals in North America now holding the title has more than tripled since 2021, according to Live Data Technologies, with the increase especially noticeable in the tech and financial services sectors.

Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire found guilty in cash for visas - The Museum of the Human Web

 

Daryl Maguire found guilty in cash for visas scheme

Disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire’s insistence that he knew nothing of a conspiracy to create false visa applications for Chinese nationals has been rejected by a jury.


Daryl Maguire found guilty of conspiracy over fraudulent visa scheme

smiling man in suit and tie

Daryl Maguire smiled at photographers after news of mixed court success emerged. -AAP Image

Former Wagga Wagga MP described as having 'no idea' about visa process


ATO and Plan of Mice & Men


The Museum of the Human Web

“The web was made by people. Not by algorithms, not by models, not by machines that dream in code. By people in rooms, garages, and workshops arguing over protocols, shipping software on floppy disks, building companies from nothing, and connecting the world one awkward, brilliant, human decision at a time. For over fifty years, from ARPANET to the eve of ChatGPT, the internet was built the old-fashioned way: 

by human beings working with nothing but other human beings’ work to build on. No co-pilots. No synthetic minds. Just vision, stubbornness, and the trembling hand of a species figuring it out in real time. That era is ending now. Not because the web is dying, but because how we make things is fundamentally changing. 

Creation is becoming a collaboration with machines. Which makes the things in this collection, the artifacts, the documents, the failures, the breakthroughs, into something new: relics of the last time we did this alone. The Museum of the Human Web is a collection of objects from that era. Some you’ll remember. Some you never knew existed. Proceeds from the artifact sweepstakes benefit the Internet Archive and the Computer History Museum. A Parallel experience.”



Federal Investigators Say Certain DOGE Records Were Deleted

Wired: “A government report claims DOGE didn’t access sensitive systems. It also says the agency deleted records that would show if they had. On April 14, 2025, a federal IT stafferfiled a whistleblower complaint with Congressalleging that members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)had accessed and possibly exfiltrated sensitive information from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

 Just days after filing the complaint, Dan Berulis, the whistleblower, found the brakes on his car had been cut after getting into a minor accident near his home. The complaint, which went public in an NPR story the day after it was filed, caused an outcry, with members of Congress calling for an investigation. The following month, in May 2025, FedScoop reported that the NLRB’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) opened an investigation.

 It remains ongoing. In April 2026, though, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—a federal agency within the legislative branch that performs audits and investigations for Congress— published its own report about DOGE’s access to the NLRB’s systems, titled “National Labor Relations Board Detailees Did Not Access IT Systems Between April 16 and July 25, 2025.” The report conspicuously only covers the time period immediately following Berulis’ complaint, and does not address any DOGE activity before that point.

But nested in the footnotes of the report is another revelation: In August 2025, shortly after DOGE members left the NLRB but before the GAO’s investigators “requested to observe the systems,” the agency “deleted the team member accounts for system access after the agreement to detail DOGE team staff had expired.” Basically, this means that the digital records of what data and systems DOGE members accessed and when had been eliminated, leaving the GAO no way to confirm what NLRB staff told their investigators…”

The Tax Office has flagged simplifying tax, closing the tax gap and preparing for regulatory changes as key priorities in its latest Corporate Plan.

ATO reshuffles Enterprise Strategy and Corporate Operations Group Interim succession plan revealed 

 

ATO reshuffles Enterprise Strategy and Corporate Operations Group Interim succession plan revealed after the appointment of Jacqui Curtis to head the APSC. Senior Executive Service musical chairs to follow.

 

Taxation commissioner Rob Heferen has revealed that the Australian Taxation Office’s enterprise strategy and design deputy commissioner, Brad Chapman, will take the interim helm of the revenue agency’s Enterprise Strategy and Corporate Operations Group after its two most senior leaders decamped to the Australian Public Service Commission.

 

Chapman has been appointed the ATO’s acting chief operating officer in the wake of the departure of Jacqui Curtis, who will succeed Gordon de Brouwer as the head of the APSC in a move that comes ahead of the commencement of the public service’s pivotal next enterprise bargaining round.


17 July 2026 • By  Miranda Brownlee  
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The ATO has published its corporate plan for the 2026–27 year, outlining its priorities for the next 12 months.

For the 2026–27 financial year, the Tax Office will focus on simplifying the tax experience, closing the payment gap, strengthening the system, partnering across the ecosystem and equipping its workforce for the future.

The ATO said it will aim to simplify the tax experience of taxpayers by reducing the time, complexity and uncertainty for those interacting with the tax system, particularly businesses and their advisers.

"This shift requires a deliberate and significant change to how tax is administered, embedding tax into the systems people already use, and prioritising simple, digital solutions," it said.

"The result is a system where more obligations are met by default, interactions are simpler, and support is targeted to those who need it most."

Implementing the government's $1,000 instant tax deduction will be another important priority for the Tax Office.

"Over 2026–27, we will establish new systems and processes to validate whether an individual is entitled to receive a standard deduction. We will also update relevant tax return guidance materials and deliver targeted communications for individuals, their agents and employers to assist them to understand the tax deduction changes," the ATO said. 

The ATO will also expand pre-filled data for businesses by pre-filling information for contractors using taxable payment reporting system data.

"We continue our focus on identifying opportunities to expand pre-fill for business using third party data, with the aim of delivering similar productivity benefits to businesses that we have for individuals over the past two decades," it said.

The ATO is also expanding its dynamic PAYG instalment pilot to enable businesses to pay instalments based on current business performance. 

The Tax Office will also look to progress towards a real-time tax system for businesses by delivering on government commitments, maximising changes within existing legislative settings and identifying opportunities for further reform.

The ATO will also aim to further close the payment gap by focusing on payment outcomes and supporting earlier and more consistent payment of tax closer to when income is earned.

The implementation of Payday Super and the strengthening of payment performance and debt collection remain major focus areas for the ATO.

"We will embed consideration of debt and payment positions into every taxpayer interaction and support taxpayers to make payment where possible," said the Tax Office.

"Beginning with our frontline services, when we engage with taxpayers we will ensure all outstanding obligations are identified and appropriate resolution pathways are provided, that take into account taxpayer circumstances.

"We will build this approach across the ATO to strengthen performance of the tax system, promote a level playing field, and enable earlier, more targeted intervention."

ATO Commissioner Rob Heferen said the ATO needed to evolve to meet the challenges of an "increasingly complex operating environment".

"Our priorities identify where our effort and resources will be focused this year, including strengthening payment performance and debt collection, implementing the Government’s $1,000 instant tax deduction, expanding the dynamic pay as you go instalment pilot, enhancing counter-fraud measures, and delivering key reforms, such as Payday Super," said Heferen.

"A further priority for the year ahead is to support the government’s regulatory reform agenda by reducing complexity, improving administrative efficiency, and minimising compliance costs for taxpayers."

Heferen said the ATO will continue to take firm action against deliberate non-compliance, while supporting the vast majority of taxpayers who want to do the right thing.

"We are committed to supporting taxpayers experiencing vulnerability. We recognise that vulnerability can affect a taxpayer’s ability to meet their obligations," he said.

"Our approach will be empathetic and proportionate, providing appropriate support while maintaining clear expectations."


Kafka on steroids:

Imagine what it is like to be told by your employer that you will be charged with misconduct and may be subject to termination of your employment, if you do not comply exactly with these directions, but you do not know what you must do or not do, in order to comply.