President Barack Obama should have selected National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson as acting Internal Revenue Service commissioner, according to a
Wall Street Journal editorial.
Instead, he chose Danny Werfel, controller of the Office of Management and Budget.
"Given that Mr. Werfel has spent the last year planning the sequester across the executive branch, he's more qualified to inflict more political abuse than prevent it," Journal editors said Friday.
Meanwhile, Olson, who serves as the public's ombudsman inside the IRS, has strong qualifications for the job, the newspaper asserted.
"Her office parachutes in to aid individuals and businesses when the tax men are jerking them around, as well as making recommendations to Congress about modernizing the IRS and the tax code," the editorial stated. And she has experience, holding the position for 12 years.
"Ms. Olson seems to view the job as a moral calling, which is much-needed. The integrity of the tax system must be paramount when people are required to hand over giant chunks of their income to government," the Journal continued.
"It usually falls to Ms. Olson to admonish the IRS that its chronic dysfunctions are — to borrow one of her favorite words — 'unconscionable.'"