By Anita Hamilton

Probationary employees at the Internal Revenue Service began learning of their terminations Thursday, according to the labor union representing them. Because some of the affected employees work at IRS call centers, the agency's firing of some 6,000 workers also raises concerns about tax filing season, which is just ramping up.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, around 300 call center workers have been affected, a representative of the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 73 told Barron's. In St. Louis, Mo., at least 19 call center employees and two people working in facilities and security were affected, a NTEU Chapter 14 representative said. At least another 100 IRS workers are being let go in Ogden, Utah, which also has a taxpayer assistance center.

"These layoffs are arbitrary and unlawful, and NTEU will keep fighting until every wrongful termination is reversed," Doreen Greenwald, NTEU president said Thursday.

That's not how the Trump administration sees things. "We are trimming the fat. We are not trimming the essential arteries of the federal government," Harrison Fields, a spokesman for the White House, told Barron's Friday.

At a White House press briefing Thursday, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said of the workers targeted for dismissal that "not all of them are fully occupied." Of the reported 3,500 workers within the agency's Small Business/Self-Employed division that may be terminated, he said, "3,500 is not a big number." There are about 2.4 million federal civilian workers overall.

The IRS workforce had grown to 94,562 as of last May, about 10,000 more than in 2014, according to federal data. At the time, 14,130 employees had been there for less than a year. Newer workers are most at risk for losing their jobs because they are typically on probation for a year.

The agency used part of the $60 billion it got from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden to boost its ranks of auditors. It announced in October 2023 that it was hiring 3,700 new agents to catch more tax cheats among "high income earners, partnerships, large corporations and promoters."

The Trump administration has been in the process of firing thousands of workers still in their probationary period across more than a dozen departments and agencies. The recently-terminated employees include 2,000 at the Forest Service, 1,000 in Veterans Affairs, 388 in the Environmental Protection Agency, and 243 in the Transportation Safety Administration. Other dismissals have been reported at the Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, and Transportation.

The IRS layoffs come days after the agency's acting commissioner, Michelle King, stepped down after Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency sought access to IRS data. DOGE will not have access to personal taxpayer information, according to a memo on the matter seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The overall impact on the coming tax season will depend largely on the scope of the layoffs and the specific jobs eliminated. When the government sought volunteers for its deferred-resignation program earlier this month, IRS workers deemed critical to tax season were told that they need to work at least through mid-May. About 75,000 federal employees accepted the offer across all federal agencies.

That said, the IRS isn't known for speedy response times or promptly answering calls. While it has made efforts to improve its customer service, the cuts could affect it if some of those roles are eliminated.

The IRS began accepting 2024 tax returns on Jan. 27, two days earlier than in 2023. It has processed nearly 24 million returns, about 17% of the more than 140 million it expects to receive by the April 15 deadline.

Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com

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February 21, 2025 17:31 ET (22:31 GMT)

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