The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly preparing to lay off thousands of its workers during its busiest time of year—tax season.
The agency, which has more than 100,000 employees, is planning to begin layoffs as early as next week, according to The New York Times.
Just yesterday, news broke that Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old member of Elon Musk’s DOGE squad, had arrived at IRS headquarters.
“The Internal Revenue Service will be looked at like everybody else,” President Donald Trump said in a presser on Thursday. “Just about everybody is going to be looked at.”
The Office of Personnel Management ordered officials in all agencies to fire any probationary employees, workers who have new positions, or those who do not have full job protections. Reuters reported that the IRS has around 16,000 probationary workers alone, making up more than 10 percent of its workforce. The Washington Post wrote that treasury officials are in discussions to lay off “roughly 9,000 employees.”
In the Biden administration, the former president had worked to add more employees to assist with IRS collections. Now, Trump’s team seems to be undoing that effort. Multiple reports said that the layoffs plan to target tax collection workers in particular.
DOGE team members have been scouring multiple government agencies in recent weeks. On Feb. 4, Musk tweeted out a poll that asked: “Would you like @DOGE to audit the IRS?”
The impact this could have on the agency as an anticipated 140 million tax returns are filed before the April 15 deadline is unknown. Late last year, the IRS was stripped of $20 billion in funding after a government shutdown loomed over D.C.
