IRS’s top IT official leaving the tax agency this month

The Internal Revenue Service’s chief information officer is leaving the tax agency this month, the latest in an increasingly long line of veteran IT leaders exiting the government amid President Donald Trump’s gutting of the federal workforce.

Rajiv Uppal told IT staffers in a Monday email, obtained by FedScoop, that he had “decided to depart” the tax agency, and that his last day will be April 28. Kaschit Pandya, the agency’s chief technology officer, will take over as acting CIO “while leadership finalizes long-term plans for the role,” Uppal wrote.

“It’s been an honor to serve as your Chief Information Officer for two filing seasons, and I’m tremendously proud of the work we’ve done together to modernize how we deliver, support mission outcomes and navigate change,” Uppal said in the email.

A Treasury Department spokesperson said in a statement to FedScoop that “Secretary [Scott] Bessent is committed to ensuring that efficiency is realized while providing that collections, privacy, and customer service the American people deserve. Staff restructuring is crucial to this effort. The long-time career CTO will become the IRS’s new CIO, who is a highly skilled engineer and will help drive technical decisions to serve American taxpayers.”

Uppal started as the IRS’s CIO in January 2024 after previously leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Office of Information Technology and serving as a digital services expert in the U.S. Digital Service during the first two years of Trump’s first term.

The IRS has faced near-constant turmoil since Trump took office again. In February, the agency laid off roughly 7,000 probationary workers, and is reportedly considering cuts that would trim its 90,000-person staff in half. In late March, 50 IT executives were placed on administrative leave. Elon Musk’s DOGE also eliminated the IRS’s Transformation and Strategy Office, according to a former agency IT executive. Treasury officials have made the case that the IRS workforce reductions are centered on “non-technical” staffers in leadership roles. 

The CIO position across federal agencies has also seen drastic upheaval following the change in administrations. The Energy Department, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration are all on to their second Trump-era CIOs. The Treasury Department also recently elevated its deputy CIO to the acting CIO role.

Most agency CIO positions have historically been designated as “career reserved,” a classification denoting impartiality. But the Trump administration has moved to reclassify the CIO position so that all individuals in those roles are considered “general” employees. 

The change in classification, spelled out in a February memo from the Office of Personnel Management, would likely transform CIOs into more inherently political positions. The OPM memo argues that top agency IT officials have increasingly conducted policy-based work, citing artificial intelligence and cybersecurity specifically. The document also makes the case that reclassifying the position could help increase the potential talent pool for CIOs. 

“To be sure, like many policy-determining and policy-advocating jobs throughout the government, agency CIO roles require a baseline of technical knowledge necessary to understand broader issues and make decisions for the agency,” the memo said. “But a modern agency CIO is not a mere engineer, scientist or technocrat. He does not spend his days writing complex lines of code, setting up secure networks, or performing other ‘highly technical’ tasks. Instead, he crafts and effectuates policy, and sets and deploys his budget, based on his Administration’s priorities.”

Former federal CIOs have mixed feelings about the classification change, telling FedScoop that there are merits to both approaches, though politicization of the role is a concern.

Prior to joining the federal government in 2016, Uppal spent nearly three decades in the private sector in a variety of software and project development roles, including executive positions with IBM, Revionics and Retail Optimization.

Former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said at the time of Uppal’s hiring that his “expertise inside the government, coupled with his work in the private sector, provides a unique skill set that will complement our strong Information Technology team at the IRS. His background and skills will help the agency continue advancing in the IT arena during this critical period as we continue using Inflation Reduction Act funding to help taxpayers and the nation.”

Nextgov first reported the news of Uppal’s resignation, as well as the departures of acting deputy CIOs Darnita Trower and Eric Markow. Trower posted on LinkedIn that she’s leaving the federal government in May for a new private-sector role.