A traffic light is red outside the American revenue services building in Washington, DC, on February 20, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
The IRS has lost almost a third of tax auditors in the midst of Elon Musk scanning cuts Government Department of EffectivenessA surveillance report found.
In March 2025, the agency's workforce had falling by more than 11,000 employeesor 11%, due to probationary endings and Delayed resignation programAccording to a May 2 report by the Treasury Inspector General for the Tax Administration.
The percentage of separate employees was much higher for certain departments – including the so -called “income agents”, which audit For the IRS. In March, the agency lost 3,623 income officers, or 31%, according to the report.
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The Tigta report came the same day as the 2026 exercise of President Donald Trump Discretionary budget requestwhich called for a budget reduction of the IRS of almost $ 2.5 billion to end the “armament of the application of the IRS”.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the request for reduced expenditure in an audience of the sub -coming of credits in the House of Representatives. He said the federal government had reduced $ 2 billion in the agency's information technology budget “without any operational disturbance”.
As of April 25, the IRS treated More than 140 million returns During the 2025 deposit season, a little more than the previous year, according to the agency data.
The treasure did not respond to the request for CNBC comments on the Tigta report.
IRS cuts could help “wealthy tax dodgers”
In a letter from March to the former IRS acting commissioner, Melanie Krause, more than 130 Democrats in the Chamber warned that the reduction of compliance staff could limit the agency's capacity to Perceive unpaid taxes Since “Rich tax dodgers. “The legislators responded to the IRS staff cuts that started at the end of February.
These cuts affect the agency's ability to “improve collections, repress tax evasion and escape complex by taxpayers with high income and large companies,” the legislators wrote.
The audits of 0.1% higher taxpayers returned More than $ 6 in income For each dollar spent on resources, according to a working document in 2023 researchers from the US Treasury Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wharton School and the University of Sydney.
During the hearing of the chambers' credit subcommittee on Tuesday, Bessent said that “the collections” were one of his IRS priorities. But he expects to achieve income goals via “more intelligently” and the “AI boom” rather than via “non -seasonal collections agents”.
“I would expect this collection to continue to be very robust,” he said.
