The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States terminated approximately 6,700 probationary employees on Thursday, February 20, accounting for 7% of the total IRS workforce of about 95,000 employees.
According to a Reuters report, a IRS employee stated that Christy Armstrong, the talent acquisition director of the IRS, was very sad when announcing the layoffs over the phone, and urged employees to support each other during these challenging times.
A government official informed NewsNation, a sister television network of The Hill, that these terminated employees were probationary staff members who had been employed for only a year or less, and did not have the comprehensive protections that regular government employees enjoy until they become official employees.
The official also told NewsNation that among the terminated employees, more than 5,000 were auditors and revenue agents handling tax compliance issues.
The White House, the Department of the Treasury, and the IRS have not officially commented on the details of the layoffs, but Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, stated on Thursday that the decision was made considering government efficiency.
Hassett said, “I think our mission is to make sure we have people who work efficiently for the wages we pay. There are a lot of people now—over 100,000 people working on tax issues, but not all of them are busy.”
According to Reuters, the layoffs affected employees in all 50 states, as well as in Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
It is expected that these layoffs will put pressure on the IRS workforce. The official start date for the 2025 tax season was January 27, and the IRS anticipates receiving over 140 million tax returns by the deadline of April 15.
At the same time this news broke, the Trump administration is stepping up efforts to reduce the federal workforce, directing agencies to lay off virtually all probationary employees who have not yet obtained civil service protections.
Additionally, the IRS has been a target of the Republican party for the increased hiring under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. A report from the House Oversight Committee in September 2023 stated that the Act injected $80 billion into the IRS, with a significant portion allocated to hiring tens of thousands of new employees. While Democrats argue this will aid tax enforcement, Republicans believe it will lead to increased audits for American wage earners and have been trying to cancel this appropriation.