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The IRS has officially terminated 6,700 probationary employees as the Trump administration has indicated that more cuts to the agency could be coming.
Some shit you should know before you read: During President Biden’s term, the IRS hired thousands of new agents as part of a funding expansion included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by both Democrats and Republicans. The bill allocated $80 billion to the IRS over a decade and was pitched as a way to strengthen tax enforcement. The IRS stated that the newly hired agents would focus primarily on increasing audits and compliance checks on high-income individuals and large corporations to ensure they pay their fair share of taxes. The agency’s head at the time said that the enhanced enforcement would not target middle-class taxpayers, a claim that some republican lawmakers said was not true.
What’s going on now: Today, the IRS announced the layoffs of 6,700 probationary employees, with more than 5,000 of them being auditors and collection staff focused on tax compliance. The cuts primarily impacted the Small Business/Self-Employed Division, which oversees tax obligations for over 57 million small business owners. According to an internal email, these workers were deemed “not critical to filing season,” and the decision was linked to efforts to improve government efficiency. The timing of the layoffs, just weeks before peak tax filing season, has sparked some backlash among lawmakers.
Democrats criticized the move as a blow to tax enforcement. House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Richard Neal (D-MA) argued, “In the middle of tax season, under the deceitful guise of ‘efficiency,’ the President and his reckless billionaire Cabinet are purging the agency responsible for processing Americans’ returns… This isn’t about efficiency; it’s about giving a free pass for the Administration’s rich friends.” Tax professionals echoed these concerns, warning that reduced enforcement capacity would encourage tax evasion among the wealthy.
Despite the criticism, the White House defended the layoffs as part of a broader initiative to increase government efficiency across federal agencies. White House Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett stated that the decision was driven by concerns over productivity, noting that “not all [IRS employees] are fully occupied,” and suggested that improved IT systems would reduce the need for such a large workforce.
This move is part of a larger effort to cut probationary federal workers across multiple departments, following an executive order that directed agency heads to initiate “large scale reductions in force.”
