COLUMBIA, S.C. —South Carolina will be getting a new director of the agency that collects and handles your state taxes. Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday announced Department of Revenue Director Rick Reames is leaving and Hartley Powell will replace him January 2nd.
Reames is leaving to go back to the private sector. Gov. Haley commended him for the job he did taking over an agency after a massive computer hack that stole the personal information of almost every South Carolina taxpayer. “He was able to bring an agency together and really tackle the security issues, really tackle a way to make sure that we were doing everything possible so that this wouldn’t happen again, and really built the morale of the agency back up so that they could be proud of who they were,” she said.
She said he also saved millions of dollars by moving away from paper and almost completely to an electronic tax system, and that he also started an anti-fraud initiative.
Powell is a lawyer who was a principal at the KPMG accounting firm. Before that, he was the director of South Carolina’s European Office at the state Department of Commerce.
The state Senate will have to confirm Powell when lawmakers go into session in January.
