Staff cuts, new rules and reassignments: IRS nears finish line for tax season marked by upheaval

The IRS workforce is a day away from completing its first tax season since the Trump administration’s staffing cuts at the agency have taken effect, which officials insist have not negatively impacted performance. 

As part of the president’s push to downsize the civil service, more than 26,000 IRS employees left the agency, generally after the 2025 tax season and mostly as a result of voluntary separation incentives. In contrast, during the Biden administration the IRS workforce grew to more than 100,000 staffers. 

And the cuts may not be finished. The tax agency reported in its fiscal 2027 budget justification that it is aiming to shed another net 4,000 staffers as part of a $1.4 billion funding reduction request. 

Officials said that the reduced workforce wouldn’t hurt performance because of technology improvements; however, the Government Accountability Office in March warned that the IRS pushed out many of the employees whose expertise would be necessary to implement such artificial intelligence technology. 

GAO also reported, based on a December 2025 internal IRS analysis, that agency managers warned staffing gaps as well as challenges implementing changes to the tax code mandated by the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act posed the biggest risks to a successful filing season. The watchdog also found that the fall 2025 government shutdown and Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze delayed hiring and reduced training time. 

Frank Bisignano — the Social Security Commissioner, who is concurrently serving in the newly created IRS CEO role — has argued, however, that the tax agency’s current staffing level is appropriate. 

“No staffing shortage here. You have to look at the results we’ve been producing,” he said during a Monday interview with Fox Business, citing data that the IRS has already processed 120 million tax returns and issued 80 million refunds. 

“75,000 people is a lot of people to run an org[anization],” he added. 

In addition to contending with workforce cuts, the IRS this tax season also has reassigned hundreds of human resources and IT workers to roles related to processing tax returns and customer service.