President Donald Trump says he wants to close the federal budget deficit, but his administration reduces the agency staff who receive the government's money.
The first cycles of reduction of the Internal Revenue Service eliminated almost a third of its listeners, according to a report of the Inspector General of the Treasury for the Tax Administration.
As of March 2, some 31% of agency income officers – more than 3,600 people – had been dismissed or took a takeover, depending on the report. Income agents carry out audits of individuals or companies. 600 other income officers, who act as a claim agents for the government, have left. Overall, 11% of IRS staff left. And much larger cuts arrive, according to reports.
“There has never been a reduction in IRS on this order – never,” said Vanessa Williamson, principal researcher at the Urban -Brooking Tax Policy Center.
“There will be much more Fortune. “It's fundamentally to come early if you have cheated on your taxes this year.”
The White House and the Treasury did not respond to requests for comments from Fortune.
Already, many large complex audits that started during the Biden administration are abandoned from the lack of staff, the Wall Street Journal reported. The division which checks the ultra-riche, called Global High Wealth, lost 38% of its staff, according to the international Consortium of investigative journalists.
The strengthening of the ranks of IRS executors was a priority under the Biden administration; For this reason, relatively more employees in these divisions are more recent, which makes them easier to shoot, reported Icij.
Tens of thousands of probation workers are still being disappeared before the courts. The Supreme Court last month granted layoffs move forward While the proceedings contesting their legality take place.
The cuts intervene as Trump and the so-called Ministry of Government efficiency move to reduce large parts of the federal government, ostensibly as an economic measure. But the criticisms invoice that the reduction of the IRS is a bad way to do so. The agency reports 96% of the country's income, but it pays more than for itself, with $ 1 spent for the application of the IRS, which gives a yield of $ 5 to $ 9, according to the Congress budget office.
Even if the ranks of the IRS decrease, the agency has imposed on the remaining staff to have compulsory overtime on weekends to treat a backlog, according to the Federal Information Network. And the Trump administration has targeted even deeper cuts, with up to 40% of IRS jobs on the cutting block, according to at FNN.
Farassing IRS could pierce a hole in the government's assessment. Already, around $ 700 billion in taxes had to be unpaid each year, largely in the Most income supports. According to the Yale Budget Lab Budget, the reduction of the IRS in two would probably overcome tax evasion and could cost 2.4 billions of dollars compared to the federal budget during the coming decade. However, he warned that the estimates were uncertain.
“”[T]Here is no modern historical precedent for this level of IRS personnel clippings: it is not clear how IRS would be able to actually operate given the scale of what has been reported, “wrote the laboratory.
“Return the IRS to a workforce to the 1960s in an environment when tax entities have become much more complex And its ability is already so exhausted could potentially change taxpayers. »»
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
