IRS Employee Purge Scheduled for Thursday Could ‘Disrupt Tax-Filing Season’: Report

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

A scheduled purge of potentially thousands of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees scheduled to begin Thursday could “disrupt tax-filing season,” Politico reported on Wednesday evening.

According to the outlet and others, employees who are relatively new to the agency are expected to be hit hard by staffing cuts days after Elon Musk’s DOGE sought access to IRS computers. Politico reported:

Though it could potentially disrupt tax-filing season, Shannon Ellis, a local union official, said in a video message that an indeterminate number of newer hires at the agency’s Kansas City facility will be let go. Layoffs are also expected at other IRS facilities.

[…]

The layoffs are part of a broader Trump administration initiative to shrink the overall federal workforce by shedding newer hires across agencies who enjoy fewer workplace protections. They will come as millions of Americans started filing their taxes for calendar year 2024, beginning last month and lasting until April 15.

The IRS is especially vulnerable to the initiative because it has been on a hiring binge in recent years as part of a sweeping effort to improve services at the agency. Between 2021 and 2024, the workforce increased by one quarter, to more than 100,000.

Getting rid of newer employees could hit the agency especially hard because it has long been plagued by high attrition rates and has a disproportionately older workforce. Nearly two-thirds of IRS employees are eligible to retire in the next six years.

Ellis told IRS employees on a video call, “We received notification today that employees in SB/SE who are on probation are scheduled for termination.”

In a separate call, she told workers she could not promise staffing cuts would not affect tenured employees.

According to The New York Times, as many as 6,000 IRS employees could be out of a job by the end of the week.