{"id":348,"date":"2026-06-10T23:40:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=348"},"modified":"2026-06-10T23:40:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:40:27","slug":"the-irs-cut-staff-now-its-rushing-to-hire-thousands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"The IRS Cut Staff. Now It’s Rushing to Hire Thousands."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called any concerns over the cuts to IRS staffing \u201ca complete fallacy\u201d in a testimony to Congress earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Pulte Problem<\/a><\/p>\n

Frank Bisignano, the IRS CEO, told lawmakers that the \u201cpundits out there saying IRS is going to fail\u201d as a result of sweeping staffing cuts are wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good about the number of employees I have right now,\u201d Bisignano said in March.<\/p>\n

Internally, however, the agency is projecting an entirely different picture. While the Trump administration publicly stated that the IRS has suffered no ill effects from the staffing cuts, the agency was sounding the alarm that it would be unable to handle tax season, requesting special permission to hire thousands of employees on an expedited basis.<\/p>\n

The IRS ultimately requested, and received, special authority to hire 8,000 employees on an expedited basis, according to an internal memorandum obtained by NOTUS.<\/p>\n

The agency has \u201cseen massive cuts to its staff in 2025 through workforce reduction initiatives\u201d and \u201congoing staffing shortages put the 2026 Filing Season at risk,\u201d Alex Kweskin, the agency\u2019s top human-resources official, said in the late-February memo to the Treasury Department that was later passed on to the Office of Personnel Management.<\/p>\n

\u201cProcessing of tax returns, return information, balance due, delinquent returns, and correspondence for taxpayers and practitioners remains an on-going issue,\u201d he said in the memo, noting that the agency is still dealing with backlogs.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration allowed the IRS to use a hiring authority that\u2019s available to federal agencies when a \u201ccritical hiring need or severe shortage of candidates exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Office of Personnel Management official confirmed that it has granted the accelerated hiring authority to the IRS, which declined to comment. The IRS will have the approval through September, though Kweskin said in the memo the need would remain through that time \u201cat a minimum.\u201d The authority empowers agencies to bypass the normal steps that typically bog down federal hiring, such as consideration of veterans\u2019 preferences or a full rating and review of top candidates.<\/p>\n

The hiring push comes after the tax agency pushed out 28,000 employees last year, or around 27% of its workforce. The cuts were among the most significant of any agency during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Danny Werfel, who led the IRS under then-President Joe Biden, said the agency was now acknowledging the warnings that watchdogs had issued when the cuts first went into effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effects of IRS staffing reductions are often invisible to taxpayers \u2014 until they need help,\u201d Werfel said. \u201cIf a return is flagged, a refund is delayed, correspondence goes unanswered, or a case requires human review, having enough trained employees becomes critical to resolving the issue in a timely manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that while growing backlogs may seem abstract to Americans, \u201cfor taxpayers it means longer waits, greater uncertainty and delayed resolution of stressful tax matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Thief Stole $40,000 From D.C. Law Firm\u2019s Political Committee<\/a><\/p>\n

The IRS is primarily hiring clerks, tax examiners, accounting technicians, tax specialists and contact representatives. Their division, Taxpayer Services, by far the largest in the IRS, shed 9,000 employees last year, or 21% of its workforce.<\/p>\n

The IRS surged staffing to customer service \u2014 and throughout the agency \u2014 under the Biden administration using Inflation Reduction Act funds, though Congress has revoked much of that money and the agency has unwound all the hiring gains achieved under the previous administration.<\/p>\n

Bessent called the hiring surges under Biden \u201ca complete disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

One former senior IRS official who recently left the agency said it was foreseeable that the agency would look to unwind some of its cuts, though he noted the hiring effort would not focus on enforcement personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand how the system can operate,\u201d the former official said. \u201cI\u2019m not surprised that they do not have adequate people to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IRS could encounter difficulty in reaching its hiring target given the Trump administration\u2019s slash-and-burn approach to the federal workforce, the former senior official said, adding that in previous staffing efforts he helped spearhead the agency lost out to companies like Amazon for the entry-level, frontline jobs for which it is now hiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how that plays out when there\u2019s so much uncertainty and so many people were let go across the IRS and across the federal government,\u201d the former official said.<\/p>\n

Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents most IRS employees, said her organization tried to warn the agency about the impacts of its cuts and hopes it will now push for more resources from Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are glad the IRS now seems to realize it needs an adequate workforce to fulfill its critical mission on behalf of the American people,\u201d Greenwald said. \u201cUnfortunately, the IRS forced thousands of professional, experienced employees out the door and must now go through the time and expense of hiring and training thousands of new employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency has taken some steps to mitigate the impacts of its cuts, including by assigning employees with no relevant experience<\/u><\/span> to process tax returns and boosting the use of mandatory overtime.<\/p>\n

But the load on the IRS has only grown since the Trump administration gutted its staff. In addition to staffing cuts and ongoing attrition, Kweskin\u2019s memo also cited the \u201csignificant changes in tax law\u201d brought on by last year\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.<\/p>\n

That measure has required the diminished IRS workforce to implement more than 100 changes to the tax code, he said.<\/p>\n

Read more What Happens to Bill Pulte\u2019s Job Running Housing Now?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An internal memo shows the tax agency contradicting its leaders\u2019 claims that the downsizing is going great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe IRS Cut Staff. Now It's Rushing to Hire Thousands. - Modern Home Journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=348\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The IRS Cut Staff. 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