The IRS is firing thousands of workers. Will it affect your tax refund?
(NEXSTAR) – With the IRS laying off thousands of employees Thursday, many Americans may be wondering if their tax returns — or their refunds — will be affected.
A government official who asked to remain anonymous confirmed news of the IRS culling 6,700 employees to Nexstar's NewsNation. It represents the latest mass termination amid an ongoing purge of federal workers by the Trump administration and Elon Musk's DOGE.
"If you asked me a month ago if the IRS would reduce their staffing, I would say yeah, I think it'll happen, but probably not until April 16 (the day after tax season ends)," tax expert Adam Brewer, of AB Tax Law, told Nexstar. "Practically speaking, it doesn't make any sense, but here we are."
The firings are happening despite IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season being told earlier this month that they would not be allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until mid-May, after the taxpayer filing deadline.
It's not entirely clear how dismissing nearly 7,000 of the roughly 90,000 IRS workers will affect the filing process, but Brewer has been advising clients to safeguard themselves by doing the following:
- File and pay any owed taxes electronically
- Make sure your refund can be deposited directly
- Take care to make sure the return is accurate and complete
- If you need to request payments by installment, do so online
"If you send in a paper return, at a minimum someone at the IRS has to be there to open the envelope, and we saw in the pandemic that doesn't get done when they get really far behind," Brewer said. "We've had situations where people send in payments, they never get cashed, and all of a sudden there's additional penalties and interest."
Taxpayers can check the status of their refunds using the IRS' Where’s My Refund? tool and via the IRS2GO app.
Who was fired?
The layoffs affect probationary employees with roughly one year or less of service at the agency and largely include workers in compliance departments, according to the person, who was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday. Compliance work includes ensuring that taxpayers are abiding by the tax code, filing their returns and paying their taxes, among other duties.
Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said on a Thursday call with reporters that the layoffs at the IRS will disproportionately harm enforcement efforts.
“When you underpay and understaff the IRS, the agency doesn’t have the power or the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax evaders with their high priced lawyers,” she said, adding, “The result is, of course, a disaster for revenue.”
The layoffs are part of the Trump administration's intensified efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who have not yet gained civil service protection.
In addition to the planned layoffs, the Trump administration intends to lend IRS workers to the Department of Homeland Security to assist with immigration enforcement. In a letter sent earlier this month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to borrow IRS workers to help with ongoing immigration crackdown efforts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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