'Setting this agency up for failure': Amid staffing crunch, IRS taps employees with no relevant experience to assist during filing season

The Internal Revenue Service is asking seasoned employees without any direct tax experience to perform entry-level tasks of answering phones and processing tax returns, a step impacted staff call unprecedented as the agency scrambles to prepare for filing season. 

The reassigned workers, who are being detailed out on an involuntary basis, are coming from the IRS human resources and, potentially, the IT departments. Some employees reported that supervisors first asked for anyone who had experience in the front-line fields to consider the roles, but they ultimately chose many individuals with no prior experience working directly on tax issues. 

The details come as IRS has dramatically slashed its workforce, cutting more than 20,000 employees—or more than 20% of total staff—in the last year. The divisions seeking internal staffing support have seen similarly significant losses to their workforces and have struggled to rebuild in time for filing season, according to a new report from the IRS inspector general. 

The divisions in IRS that process tax returns and provide telephonic and in-person customer service, as well as other duties related to filing season, have lost 8,300 workers, or 17% of their staff, the IG found. 

The IRS division tasked with processing original and amended tax returns has hired just 50 employees in anticipation of the 2026 filing season, or 2% of its authorized level. It can take up to 80 days to train new employees, the IG said, meaning employees hired now may not be ready to assist during filing season at all. Accounts Management, which handles IRS customer service, has hired just 66% of the filing season employees for which it has been authorized. 

The IG warned the shortfalls could lead to delayed returns and slow service for taxpayers in the upcoming season and said the impacts have already been felt. Tax return backlogs were still elevated as a result of the pandemic, the IG said, but have soared higher due to staffing losses in IRS. The total now stands at 2 million, up 33% from a year ago. 

The reassignments were issued “so tax season doesn’t grind to a halt,” said one employee whose office is losing employees to the new roles. The employees will face 120-day details to perform the front-line work, which employees said is not something that had ever previously been considered. Alex Kweskin, the agency's chief human capital officer, told employees at a town hall meeting on Wednesday the details could be extended to up to 180 days. IRS is seeking 500 employees, according to two employees familiar with the plans, who said further details are also expected from IT. The HR employees will start their new duties later this month.  

Employees said supervisors initially sought volunteers, but the temporary details later became assigned and mandatory. They noted most of the employees being asked to accept the details are farther along in their careers and working more specialized jobs than those who typically work in them, meaning IRS would be paying them double or triple what a normal customer service representative or tax examiner would make.  

“My team is about as far removed from tax work as possible,” the employee said. 

Another employee who will begin a detail in the coming weeks said they and their colleagues who would be reassigned “have no experience in taxpayer services.” Detailed employees will have limited capacity to stop fraudulent returns, assist small businesses or otherwise help taxpayers due to their lack of training and understanding of the tax system, they said, adding “the error rate is going to skyrocket.” 

“They are setting this agency up for failure for this tax season for sure,” the employee said. “It’s going to make a bigger impact than people realize.”

IRS declined to comment for this story.

The looming requests for the IT shop come at a tumultuous time for that division. Last year it reassigned 1,500 employees to the office of the chief operating officer, with no detail on what their new roles would entail. Those employees were recently told the agency is working with IRS CEO Frank Bisignano to determine temporary assignments for the displaced workers. Employees have remained on the payroll with no work assignments since December. One such worker said he hoped to avoid being detailed to a taxpayer services role.

“It would be a disaster,” the employee said. “Many of us don’t have this kind of knowledge to do an effective job for taxpayers.” 

As IRS adjusts to its new staffing realities, the agency is lowering its goal of phone calls it services from 85% down to 70%.  Many of the technologies IRS said it would leverage to make up for the staffing losses are not yet ready, the IG found in its report.

Hiring has slowed in part due to Bisignano and Treasury now having to sign off on every job posting and every hire, the watchdog added. 

One employee whose office is sending staff to fill the details noted it has never backfilled after the deferred resignation program and the temporary details would therefore have an outsized effect on efforts to fulfill normal duties. Another employee said the entire ethics team, with the exception of one person, is being detailed to taxpayer services. 

“They are leaving one person to deliver ethics training for the entire agency,” the employee said. “It’s an impossible task for one person.” 

The same worker added employees in charge of recruiting and hiring are being detailed out, making it more difficult for IRS to bring on the staff the IG said it is failing to hire.

IRS is now the latest agency in the Trump administration to ask employees to move around to fill vacancies it spurred. The Agriculture Department, which shed more than 15,000 employees since President Trump took office, last month asked employees to transfer into “critical” vacancies as it threatened more cuts. The National Weather Service previously offered employees opportunities to transfer to fill key roles that had been left unoccupied. The Justice Department last year asked employees within its Civil Rights Division to take reassignments to fill roles in areas related to education, employment and voting after leaders cited the “deep need” created by significant vacancies.