Benjamin Franklin famously said, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” That well-worn idiom apparently applies even to the people collecting the taxes.
The Internal Revenue Service is apparently seeking to cut as much as half of its labor force, as first reported Tuesday by the Associated Press. The IRS, which employs 90,000, is said to be considering the move preemptively, in response to the Trump administration’s ongoing steps to streamline government operations and cut down on waste, fraud and abuse.
Cutting headcount from the government’s tax collecting agency, which has for decades been criticized for its nearly unfettered power to audit and prosecute, is not likely to elicit many tears from rank and file taxpayers. Nor will proponents likely miss the opportunity to point to 2022 when then-President Joe Biden OK’d $80 million to hire 87,000 new IRS agents as part of massive social spending and taxation legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act. That move, which was to be carried out over 10 years, would have doubled the agency’s size.
Nevertheless, the plan under consideration had critics warning such cuts would irreparably cripple the agency. USA Today predicted the reduction in force would likely slow down tax processing and refund delivery as well as reduce audits which could give cover to tax cheats.
John Koskinen, a former IRS commissioner, summed it up when he told AP cutting this many positions would render the IRS “dysfunctional.”
That the IRS is considering the measure is a telling sign of the change afoot in Washington at the hands of the Elon Musk-led DOGE, which fired its opening salvo on the USAID agency last month. To date, the administration has eliminated 90 percent of the agency’s foreign aid contracts and slashed headcount. Proponents claim billions in savings while opponents point to what they consider draconian effects on humanitarian groups and NGOs around the world.
Next up appears to be the Department of Education, which President Donald Trump has publicly vowed to dismantle. Employees had until midnight March 2 to accept an offer of up to $25,000 to resign or retire. It is unclear how many took the deal, Fox News reported Tuesday.
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