#billy long

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🚨BREAKING: Trump's IRS nominee Billy Long just had his personal debt paid off by donors whose firms have business before the tax agency he’d lead, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.

If confirmed, Long would be able to do favors for the donors. www.levernews.com/trump-irs-pi...

If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options for contacting your Senators:

Five Calls to your critters: https://5calls.org/

First Greenland, next Iceland? Reykjavík is concerned about America’s growing territorial ambitions, after POLITICO reported that President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland Billy Long joked in Washington that Iceland will be the 52nd U.S. state and he’ll be governor. “The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has contacted the U.S. Embassy in Iceland to verify the veracity of the alleged comments,” Iceland’s foreign ministry told POLITICO in a statement.

IRS ends enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, permits churches to endorse candidates or ballot measures from the pulpit

David Fahrenthold at NYT:

The I.R.S. said on Monday that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, carving out an exemption in a decades-old ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits. The agency made that statement in a court filing intended to settle a lawsuit filed by two Texas churches and an association of Christian broadcasters. The plaintiffs that sued the I.R.S. had previously asked a federal court in Texas to create an even broader exemption — to rule that all nonprofits, religious and secular, were free to endorse candidates to their members. That would have erased a bedrock idea of American nonprofit law: that tax-exempt groups cannot be used as tools of any campaign. Instead, the I.R.S. agreed to a narrower carveout — one that experts in nonprofit law said might sharply increase politicking in churches, even though it mainly seemed to formalize what already seemed to be the agency’s unspoken policy.

The agency said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the I.R.S. would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.” “Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,” the agency said, in a motion filed jointly with the plaintiffs. The ban on campaigning by nonprofits is named after former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who introduced it as a senator in 1954. President Trump has repeatedly called for its repeal.

In the filing, the I.R.S. and the plaintiffs asked a federal judge to enter an order barring the Trump administration — and any that came after it — from enforcing the ban against the groups that sued. [...] For years, the I.R.S. has seemed deeply leery of punishing religious leaders for political statements made during worship. But experts said this was the first time that the agency had formally said such statements were not just tolerated but explicitly legal.

The IRS rules that churches can directly endorse candidates and ballot measures from the pulpit, per a filing in the National Religious Broadcasters v. Long case. This move effectively ends the enforcement of the Johnson Amendment for churches and religious institutions.

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Going, going, gone! Former auctioneer Billy Long is out at IRS, sending the administration on a search for its seventh commissioner in as many months. What did he do - or not do?

Billy Long, who was sworn in just under two months ago, was already the sixth person to hold the job this year.

Aug. 8, 2025, 3:07 PM CDT / Updated Aug. 8, 2025, 3:27 PM CDT

By Steve Kopack, Monica Alba, Julia Jester and Jonathan Allen

President Donald Trump on Friday removed Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Billy Long and is replacing him temporarily with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, three sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

Long was only just sworn in as commissioner in June. The change also comes days after Trump's sprawling new tariffs took effect, and a month after the president signed several tax cuts and changes to the tax code into law.

Long confirmed to NBC News that he is leaving the job.

“It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump, and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland. I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!” Long said in a text message to NBC News.

Bessent will become the sixth person this year to oversee the critical agency under Trump. Danny Werfel, who was nominated to the role by President Joe Biden, also held the job until Trump's inauguration in January.

The temporary appointment adds to Bessent’s long list of tasks such as managing trade talks with China, Canada and Mexico as well as other countries that are still trying to negotiate tariff rates. Bessent is also currently helping with the search for the next Federal Reserve chair. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department.

Under the Trump administration, the IRS has faced sweeping job cuts as part of a push by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

A Treasury Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Before being confirmed by the Senate to run the IRS, Long was a congressman from Missouri from 2011 until 2023. Before serving in Congress, he was an auctioneer.

One day before his removal, Long sent all IRS employees an email saying, "Please enjoy a 70-minute early exit tomorrow. That way you’ll be rested for my 70th birthday on Monday," The New York Times reported.

Internal vs. "external" revenue

Trump's government is shaking up how the nation collects revenue. The United States is now collecting billions of dollars more in tariff revenue every month due Trump's new import taxes. So far this year, importers, which include small and large U.S. businesses, have paid more than $100 billion in customs duties to the U.S. government.

Trump has long promised to set up an "external revenue service" for collecting those tariff revenues but the task still falls to the Treasury Department and Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Last month, Trump signed into law his "big, beautiful bill,” which includes sweeping tax cuts, spending initiatives and service cuts. The Senate passed the contentious bill thanks to Vice President JD Vance's tiebreaker.

The law extends the expiring tax cuts he enacted in his first term, in 2017, while temporarily slashing taxes on tips and overtime pay and allowing deductions on auto loan interest payments. It also includes hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on the military and on carrying out Trump’s mass deportation plans.

Republicans battled over how much they should cut federal safety net programs in the spending bill as well as how much to raise the deduction cap on state and local taxes, or SALT.