News/Commentary

IRS could cut staff by half, AP notes race and gender of workforce

March 5, 2025 | | Print Article

The DOGE downsize effort is reportedly setting its sights on a federal agency dreaded by many Americans, with the potential for a staffing slash by as much as half.

Among the myriad issues that President Donald Trump discussed during his address to Congress on Tuesday, both taxes and fraud were featured prominently. As he called on the legislature to pass permanent tax cuts and lauded “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud” uncovered by the Department of Government Efficiency, plans to shrink the Internal Revenue Service were reported by the Associated Press.

Citing two anonymous individuals that lacked authorization to reveal the plans, it was detailed that a combination of “layoffs, attrition and incentivized buyouts” could see the workforce of around 90,000 employees cut by as much as 50% following direction from the White House for all agencies to develop a plan to reduce their workforces.

While quoting former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who contended the scaledown would make the agency “dysfunctional,” the AP made a point of detailing, “People of color make up 56% of the IRS workforce, and women represent 65%.”

Koskinen joined six fellow former commissioners in writing an op-ed for the New York Times following the termination of nearly 7,000 probationary employees and argued, “Shrinking the I.R.S. will not lower your tax obligation. That’s up to Congress.”

“Aggressive reductions in the I.R.S.’s resources will only render our government less effective and less efficient in collecting the taxes Congress has imposed,” the op-ed added. “It will shift the burden of funding the government from people who shirk their taxes to the honest people who pay them, and it will impede efforts by the I.R.S. to modernize customer service and simplify the tax filing process for everyone.”

That position belied the president’s intentions as Trump has demonstrated a desire to not only scale down the IRS but, as his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has expressed, do away with it altogether.

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters in February. “I mean, this is someone who is focused on America. Let’s drive down our waste, foreign abuse.”

In the meantime, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent a memo to the Treasury Department looking to take advantage of the IRS workforce that has ballooned under the Biden administration, writing, “It is DHS’s understanding that the Department of Treasury has qualified law enforcement personnel available to assist with immigration enforcement, especially in light of recent increases to the Internal Revenue Service’s workforce and budget.”

Further, despite the handwringing of former commissioners and fearmongering from the president’s opposition, the “deferred resignation program” that has been offered to IRS employees that would allow them, like other federal employees, to accept a buyout to walk away from their position has a built-in delay.

So as not to unnecessarily strain the agency ahead of the taxpayer filing deadline, those buyouts won’t be accepted from IRS employees until mid-May.

While some took an “orange man bad” approach to demonize the move, along with anything advanced by Trump, others were ecstatic about what they considered a move in the right direction toward the elimination of income tax.

Kevin Haggerty
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