Frank Bisignano wants to run the Internal Revenue Service like an efficient, private company – and this week he appointed a private banker to Jamie Dimon to help him do it, On The Money has learned.
Vince La Padula has spent the past 23 years at JP Morgan running the so-called “workplace solutions” business in the big bank’s wealth management arm. Now he joins Uncle Sam’s tax collection agency as Bisignano’s second-in-command.
La Padula’s resume includes stints in New York City government under Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg. At JPMorgan, he was also the bank’s point man on Ukraine and its efforts to build a post-war economy.
But La Padula was also, in a sense, Dimon’s personal banker, handling his estate planning and investment needs as a key assistant to Mary Erdos, head of asset and wealth management at JPMorgan.
Starting next week, he will take on a yet-to-be-determined senior position at the IRS, where he will essentially serve as Bisignano’s second-in-command, an interesting move from the country’s largest and most prestigious bank to a notorious (and much-hated) government agency.
I’m told the Trump White House is looking to change all that. The goal is to remake the IRS from an obnoxious tax collector and source of intimidating audits into something more taxpayer-friendly.
This is where Bisignano comes into play. A longtime corporate executive who was himself a former top executive at JPMorgan, he was appointed by President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Besent as the IRS’s first “CEO,” a noteworthy title. In the past, the IRS was run by commissioners, essentially political figures appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Bisignano was hired to run the IRS like a company that made money and, more importantly, provided refunds to taxpayers in an efficient manner.
I was told that this is where La Padula comes in. La Padula has not provided any comment to On The Money but people close to him tell me they are long-time friends and colleagues. Plus, his transition from banker to bureaucrat – given that bureaucracy is precisely what is being targeted for slimming – should be pretty smooth.
La Padula’s job as head of JPM’s Workplace Solutions group was to engage with larger companies and provide the technology needed to efficiently manage and manage their various HR functions — from compensation to 401(k)s to stock options.
The IRS collects about $6 trillion in taxes every year. Because of the tax cuts and incentives in President Trump’s “big beautiful” budget bill, refunds this year have skyrocketed. The IRS under the DOGE reduced its staffing levels to about 75,000 from 100,000 at the start of the administration, meaning it needed La Padula’s operational and technical expertise to keep the trains running on time.
I’m told Damon threw a farewell party for La Padula earlier this week at the so-called “Patriot Bar,” the upstairs reception area of the bank’s lavish headquarters in midtown Manhattan. About 200 people attended the conference, including clients and friends such as former New York Mercantile Exchange Chairman Vincent Viola (also founder of high-speed trading company Virtu and owner of the NHL’s Florida Panthers), Robert and Jonathan Kraft of the New England Patriots, and Big Apple Group CEO John Catsimatidis. Bisignano also attended.
Damon addressed the crowd and said La Padula would always be welcome at the bank. xxx It’s easy to see why.