Today, Representatives Deborah Ross (NC-02) and Lloyd Doggett (TX-37) urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to address serious concerns about the agency’s decision to terminate 7,000 probationary employees and new reported plans that it plans to cut 25% of its workforce. The lawmakers are following up on their March 5th letter with more than 130 House Democrats, which the agency has ignored to date.
The lawmakers are questioning the IRS’s decision to scale back and terminate auditing efforts of individuals in the highest income brackets and large corporations while bizarrely focusing on immigration enforcement and the deregulation of decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency brokers during tax season. A greatly reduced workforce in combination with these new priorities could prove highly disruptive and could cause widespread delays and frustration for taxpayers.
“This shift in focus and resources is inappropriate and counterproductive and will distract from fulfilling IRS’s core functions: processing refunds in a timely manner, answering taxpayer questions, and ensuring that the wealthy and well-connected play by the same rules as everyone else,” wrote the lawmakers.
The Members requested prompt answers from the IRS about how it plans to mitigate the operational consequences of losing 25% of its workforce, the decision-making process for making such an extreme decision, how the agency plans to ensure timely refunds and robust fraud prevention, and the total number of employees terminated or enrolled in the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP).
The full text of the letter is available here.