The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is planning to slash approximately 7,000 probationary workers in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S. starting Thursday, according to reports.
The layoffs will affect probationary workers who have been employed for one year or less and have not been able to secure full civil service protection, The Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the plans.
Reuters also reported about the expected layoffs, citing a person familiar with the matter who said about 6,700 IRS workers, or 7% of the tax agency’s roughly 95,000-person workforce, would be eliminated.
The source told Reuters that those employees on the chopping block included those holding positions that ranged from revenue agents, to specialized auditors to IT specialists across all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
It is unclear how the layoffs will affect tax collection services at the IRS, which is expected to receive more than 140 million returns this year, according to the AP.
The source told Reuters that the IRS will keep several thousand probationary employees who are considered critical for processing tax returns, including workers tasked with supporting and advocating for taxpayers.
The AP’s source, meanwhile, reportedly said the job cuts will largely impact the employees in compliance. The compliance department oversees whether taxpayers are filing their returns, paying their taxes and meeting other tax obligations in full and on time by the April 15 due date.
The IRS has not confirmed the reported layoff plan. Fox News Digital reached out to the IRS and the Department of Treasury for comment Thursday but did not immediately hear back.
Laying off probationary federal employees comes as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to increase government efficiency and eliminate wasteful federal spending. The Department of Government Efficiency has been tasked with trimming the federal workforce, which includes laying off nearly all recent hires.
The announcement comes after President Donald Trump stated on Jan. 29 that federal employees must return to in-person work by early February or face termination.
IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season were also told earlier this month that they were not eligible to accept the Trump administration’s buyout offer until mid-May, after the taxpayer filing deadline, the AP reported.
Trimming the workforce will partially undo the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which devoted $80 billion to employing 87,000 new IRS agents, according to a September 2023 report from the House Oversight Committee.
The funds were used to hire agents who specifically targeted middle-class Americans, the oversight committee claimed.
The Biden administration, however, argued that staffing up the IRS would help the federal government better ensure wealthy Americans were paying their fair share of taxes.
Service performance and phone wait times at the IRS have improved in the past two filing seasons, according to a statement from the IRS in January.
‘This has been a historic period of improvement for the IRS, and people will see additional tools and features to help them with filing their taxes this tax season,’ IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel wrote in the statement. ‘These taxpayer-focused improvements we’ve done so far are important, but they are just the beginning of what the IRS needs to do. More can be done with continued investment in the nation’s tax system.’
Fox News’ Alexandra Koch and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
