At the height of tax season, the chronically understaffed Internal Revenue Service is expected to begin firing more than 6,000 employees on Thursday as part of the Trump administration's large-scale and
destructive assault on the federal civil service.
Government Executivereported that the terminations "are expected to affect probationary employees ranging from recent graduates to veterans to specialized auditors across all 50 states."
An unnamed IRS employee told the outlet that Thursday's firings are likely just the start.
"They want to keep cutting," the worker said.
The firings come days after one of billionaire Elon Musk's lieutenants reportedly gained access to a critical IRS system containing sensitive taxpayer data,
raising widespread alarm. Musk has also taken aim at the agency's popular Direct File program.
On Wednesday, Trump's newly confirmed commerce secretary said the president's ultimate goal is to "abolish the Internal Revenue Service."
Elizabeth Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a
statement that Trump and Musk are "gutting the IRS in the middle of tax filing season for one reason, and one reason alone: to let wealthy tax cheats off the hook."
"Trump and Musk care far more about hamstringing the agency in charge of making sure their billionaire buddies pay their tax bills than they do about making tax season bearable for millions of taxpayers," said Pancotti.
Groundwork noted that attacks on the IRS will likely have consequences that run directly counter to the
stated objectives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
"Recent research found that for every $1 spent on tax enforcement for the wealthy, taxpayers get an average return of $26," Groundwork observed.
Biden-era investments in the IRS, which Republicans
starved of funding for years, yielded significant revenue from wealthy individuals, as the agency had the resources necessary to ramp up audit rates for the rich.
In a
letter to top Trump administration officials earlier this week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other senators warned that the mass IRS terminations and hiring freeze could cause a "tax refund trainwreck."
"It is nearly inevitable that this hiring freeze, compounded by layoffs and further reductions in staff mandated as a result of Elon Musk's unprecedented power grab will delay refunds and degrade taxpayer service," the senators wrote. "Millions of Americans plan their budgets around timely refunds every filing season. These reckless decisions on the part of Elon Musk and the Trump administration will likely cause serious financial hardship for people across the country."
