Congressional Republicans on the campaign trail have struggled to sell voters on last year’s massive tax cut bill, one of their signature achievements. In most cases, candidates would want data to share on who benefited from that legislation. But the IRS is months behind on sharing key data about how the new law affected taxpayers. It’s an absence that raises important questions about why the IRS hasn’t shared what it has learned.

The One Big Beautiful Bill contained all kinds of changes to the tax code, including new deductions for workers on their tips and overtime wages. The IRS was due to release a set of data detailing the overall tax landscape at the end of the 2026 filing season in July, with an updated version in September. According to Politico, this would have included vital findings on “the uptake of individual provisions in the code as well as things like how much more people in different income groups reported earning, and how many people still owed money to the IRS at the time of filing.”

These figures could show that the tax bill was a huge success — or provide more proof that the tax burden has shifted away from the rich and onto Americans already angry at President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy.

These figures could show that the tax bill was a huge success — or provide more proof that the tax burden has shifted away from the rich and onto Americans already angry at President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. Per Politico, the IRS “said it is awaiting approval from the Treasury Department to publish the figures.” While the agency does sit under Treasury’s broader umbrella, this isn’t a call Secretary Scott Bessent would normally be making. But the IRS has been the center of an outsized share of drama since January.

The agency went through eight leaders last year, and the commissioner seat is still currently vacant. Bessent stepped in as acting commissioner last year, but his window to legally run the agency closed. The Treasury said in a statement that while he “oversees the operations of all Treasury offices and bureaus, including the Internal Revenue Service,” by March, his service “has expired, and he has not served in that capacity since that time.” Bessent clarified to the Senate in July that while he was no longer the acting commissioner, he was still “performing the duties of the commissioner.”

Day-to-day operations at the IRS, though, are being handled by Social Security Administration chief Frank Bisignano, who has been serving as the IRS’ “chief executive officer” since last October. The role didn’t exist before Bessent created it and it seems like a way to get around having to get a new commissioner confirmed after the last one, Billy Long, was fired two months into the gig. Whether it’s Bessent making the call to withhold the data or Bisignano passing the buck, the outcome is the same: the suppression of public data that could be potentially embarrassing to the administration.

The most plausible alternate, less nefarious, possibility: The IRS simply lacks the personnel to have successfully parsed this year’s tax data. The aforementioned drama included major cuts at the IRS, both in funding and in staffers. Congressional Republicans have clawed back millions of dollars meant to ease the burden on already overworked auditors. The upheaval of mass layoffs, early retirements and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to worm its way into the system prompted a mass exodus of staffers. More than 31,000 employees had left the IRS as of this January, according to its inspector general.

The departures were enough for the IRS to petition the Treasury, in a February memo, for an immediate hiring spree, warning that “ongoing staffing shortages put the 2026 Filing Season at risk,” according to a Washington Sun report in June. CNBC reported in July that Senate Democrats were curious about the discrepancy between that memo and Bisignano previously telling Congress that there were no staffing issues at the agency. (“The IRS delivered a historically successful filing season, efficiently processing returns and issuing average refunds that were 11 percent higher than last year as Americans benefited from the President’s Working Families Tax Cuts,” an IRS spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.)

What can be said for certain is that the longer the IRS delays in releasing this data, the worse it will look when it finally comes to light.

Whatever the cause, the full consequences of the most consequential law this outgoing Congress passed remain a mystery. It’s hard to say more about the withholding though given the absence of, well, data. We don’t know how much of the delay is due to incompetence, negligence or ill-intent — or a combination of the three.

What can be said for certain is that the longer the IRS delays in releasing this data, the worse it will look when it finally comes to light. If it vindicates the GOP with positive news, it will be too late to have made an effect on the election. If it damns the tax bill’s effects, Bessent and Bisignano will have a lot of questions to answer about why that information was kept from voters until many their ballots had already been cast.

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