Government efficiency effort set to hit more than 6,000 jobs at IRS

The Internal Revenue Service is set to lay off approximately 6,000 employees as part of a broader effort to reduce the size of the federal government, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The job cuts represent about 6 percent of the agency’s workforce and come in the middle of the tax-filing season.

The layoffs – which came a week after earlier headlines of the Department of Government Efficiency making overtures at the IRS – are part of a continuing government-wide downsizing initiative led by the Trump administration, which has sought reductions across multiple federal agencies. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, a major donor to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, has been active and vocal in advising on the initiative.

According to Reuters, Christy Armstrong, director of talent acquisition at the IRS, informed employees of the layoffs in a call on Thursday.

“She was pretty emotional,” one worker who was on the call told the news service. Armstrong urged staff to support one another as the agency moves forward with the reductions.

A total of 6,700 positions are expected to be cut, largely affecting employees hired during an expansion under President Joe Biden, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Biden’s administration had sought to increase IRS staffing to bolster tax enforcement efforts on high-income earners, bolstering financial support for the agency under the Inflation Reduction Act. The former president had openly pushed for tax policies targeting the ultra-rich, including a proposed billionaire's tax that would have imposed a 25 percent levy on the richest 0.01 percent of Americans.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the expansion of the IRS, arguing that it could lead to greater scrutiny of ordinary taxpayers.

The IRS workforce currently stands at roughly 100,000 employees, up from 80,000 before Biden took office in 2021. Independent budget analysts have projected that the additional staff hired under Biden’s plan would have contributed to increased government revenue and reduced federal deficits.

“This [mass layoff] will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that’s really focused on the low income,” said Philip Hackney, a tax law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a former IRS attorney. “It’s a travesty.”

Prior to Trump's election in November, the IRS had vowed in its 2025 statement of priorities to continue focusing on high-wealth individuals, large corporations, and complex partnerships that attempt to conceal their assets from federal tax collectors.

"This work is directly in line with the IRS’s vision to minimize attempts at tax evasion by complex filers. The IRS estimates that approximately $63 billion, or 9% of the gross tax gap, is due to nonfilers," the report read.

The positions set to be hit in the mass downsizing include revenue agents, customer service representatives, IT specialists, and employees handling tax dispute appeals. Layoffs will impact workers across all 50 states.

The IRS has yet to issue a public statement on the decision.

While staff reductions have proceeded rapidly at other federal departments including the CFPB and the SEC, which experts say could have long-term consequences.  For its part, the IRS has taken a more measured approach due to the ongoing tax-filing season. The agency expects to process more than 140 million individual tax returns by the April 15 deadline and will retain staff essential to that effort, according to a source.

Federal labor unions have challenged the layoffs in court, arguing they violate worker protections, but a Washington judge ruled on Thursday that the terminations can proceed for now.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Musk portrayed DOGE's ongoing efforts as a win for Americans as he held up a chainsaw handed to him by Argentine President Javier Milei.

“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk said.