2025-05-14
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration May 2, 2025, report highlighted an 11% IRS workforce reduction as of February 2025, including 31% of revenue agents and 5% of information technology management employees.
During a during a May 6, 2025, oversight hearing of the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Treasury Secretary Bessent framed the current employment level at the IRS as “bloated,” that those hired from the supplemental funding from the IRA to enhance enforcement have not been effective, and that the workforce reduction partially justifies the smaller requested IRS budget. He said that the IRS will use artificial intelligence to help automate the collection process, maintain and enhance collection activities, and process paper returns and other correspondence.
Secretary Bessent stated that the agency is “reviewing the process of who is audited at the IRS. There’s a great deal of politicization of that, so we are trying to stop that, and we are also going to look at distribution of who is audited and why they are audited” to ensure an equitable distribution of enforcement action.