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The IRS has a little more egg on its face. (By now it’s a full-blown omelet.)
The agency is looking to rehire hundreds of audit staff who accepted deferred resignation offers, the Federal News Network reported. In an email to IRS employees, its HR heads stated that staff cuts had “created a potential gap in mission-critical expertise” and that the agency would take steps to solve that problem, “including details, reassignments, DRP/TDRP [Deferred Resignation Program and Treasury Deferred Resignation Program] rescissions, [and] external hiring.”
An IRS employee told FNN that management said during a town hall that the agency had “let too many people go” and that it wanted to “bring back 400 revenue agents and 300 revenue officers who accepted the DRP.” The employee said the IRS planned on “DRP rescissions,” meaning it would contact staff who took DRP offers and ask them to reconsider.
But even bringing back 700 people would be a drop in the bucket. The IRS lost more than 3,600 of its revenue agents, who conduct audits, and more than 600 of its revenue officers, who handle collections, as of this March, a TIGTA report showed. It’s likely that more audit staff have left since then: The IRS’s workforce will decrease by 26% when all the reductions in force are completed, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate.
This isn’t the first time the IRS has tried to walk back the staff cuts. Earlier this month, it posted job openings for around 4,500 customer service representatives. About 9,000 employees have left or resigned from its taxpayer service division, which includes customer service, this year.