President Trump made headlines with his nomination of Rep. Billy Long of Missouri as the next IRS commissioner, signaling a new era for an agency mired in controversy. Trump has made no secret of his plans to reform the IRS, promising to rein in “bureaucratic overstepping” and put an end to its wasteful and abusive practices. If Billy Long is to fulfill that promise, a clear starting point should be addressing the IRS’s aggressive and misguided litigation strategy against conservation easements – one of the clearest examples of the agency’s overreach.
Conservation easements, a legal tax deduction codified by Congress, were designed to encourage land preservation by allowing property owners to claim tax benefits for voluntarily restricting development on their land. Yet the IRS has turned what was meant to be a win-win for conservation and taxpayers into a battlefield. Rather than evaluating these deductions on their merits, the IRS has adopted a one-size-fits-all approach, litigating nearly 100% of cases related to conservation easement deductions.
The result? A federal tax court system clogged with thousands of cases, some dragging on for years, with little to show for it.
At present, it is estimated that the Federal Tax Court has somewhere between 800 and 1,000 conservation easement cases docketed that are incredibly delayed. In a research study conducted in December of 2024, a sampling of 693 of the currently docketed Federal Tax Court cases showed the IRS using a one-size fits all approach to winning its litigation by assigning a zero-dollar value to the conserved properties, effectively nullifying 100% of all the taxpayer's claimed deductions for making their property donation.
The statistical improbability of the IRS adhering to its own Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) in valuing the easement properties highlights significant ethical and performance concerns. This consistent disallowance of taxpayers' easement deductions raises important questions about potential undue influence within the Agency, prompting a need to investigate whether employees and external contractors are being directed to disregard individual case facts and established IRS guidelines.
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In another particularly egregious example of IRS misconduct with easements, tax court judges found that IRS agents had backdated documents to impose multi-million-dollar penalties on a taxpayer. A U.S. Tax Court judge sanctioned the agency for its “bad faith” conduct, describing its actions as unnecessarily prolonging proceedings while wasting taxpayer dollars.
This kind of behavior isn’t just wasteful – it’s an abuse of power. Congress, not the IRS, legislates tax policy, and the tax code explicitly has allowed for these deductions. Yet the agency continues to treat all taxpayers who claim them as inherently suspect, weaponizing its authority to audit and litigate without restraint in an effort to force taxpayers into lengthy legal battles.
The courts have noticed. In major rulings like Hewitt v. Commissioner, Green Valley Investors, LLC v. Commissioner and Valley Park Ranch v. Commissioner, the IRS has been rebuked for its overreach and shifting regulatory positions. And with last year’s Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which rolled back Chevron deference, the judiciary has made it clear that executive agencies like the IRS cannot unilaterally reinterpret the law to suit their own preferences.
The IRS’s heavy-handed approach has left taxpayers feeling targeted instead of served – continuously ignoring that conservation easement incentives in the tax code were placed there for landowners to both use the tax benefits and benefit the public with a permanent conservation resource. The IRS should have long ago prioritized hiring independent experts to accurately evaluate the true value of land dedicated to conservation, rather than approaching each easement with overly technical arguments and trying to conflate conservation easements with actual instances of tax avoidance like the FLIP, BLIPS and Son of Boss transactions, for which there was no public benefit.
This is the backdrop against which Long is nominated as the new IRS commissioner. If confirmed, to ensure his tenure marks a genuine shift, he must address the agency’s pattern of overreach and realign it with its core mission: administering the tax code fairly and without bias. A key first step would be halting the IRS’s blanket litigation strategy against conservation easements. Instead of presuming guilt, the agency should focus on resolving disputes efficiently and fairly, prioritizing cases with clear evidence of fraud rather than wasting resources on endless audits and court battles.
Reforming the IRS isn’t just about cutting red tape or reducing waste – it’s about restoring trust. The agency’s actions over the past decade have eroded public confidence, making taxpayers feel like targets rather than participants in a system designed to serve them.
President Trump’s promise to clean up the IRS starts here. It’s time to end the agency’s war on taxpayers, prioritize efficiency and fairness, and focus on what matters most: serving the public, not prosecuting them into submission. Billy Long has the chance to leave a legacy of reform – one that could finally put an end to the IRS’s bureaucratic overstepping. The question now is whether he’ll seize it.
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