Millions of Americans have been wondering if their IRS refunds will arrive late this year due to the new DOGE’s plans to cut Internal Revenue Service (IRS) jobs. Thousands of IRS employees may be let go before the tax filing deadline of April 15. Here’s how this action may impact how your return is distributed.
IRS refunds won’t arrive on the regular schedule date for this reason
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has recently targeted the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as the 2025 tax season begins. DOGE may lose thousands of employees as a result of its plans to reduce and simplify federal staff, potentially delaying the issuance of tax refunds.
Despite the White House’s defense of these layoffs, Democratic leaders believe they are inefficient. When DOGE took office, it offered buyouts to thousands of federal employees, including those at the IRS, with the White House’s approval.
According to the Fed Manager, approximately 4,500 people accepted the deal. During the Biden administration, the IRS planned to hire 80,000 more agents by 2031 in an effort to expand its workforce and target wealthy tax evaders.
According to Reuters, approximately 16,000 additional employees were hired, bringing the total workforce to around 100,000. However, they are likely to be fired because many of them are in their probationary period, which is their first or second year on the job.
According to ABC News, up to 15,000 IRS employees could be laid off as early as this week, and they are unlikely to be able to accept any buyout offers.
How will these cuts impact IRS refunds for employees and taxpayers?
According to KCUR, a Kansas City-based NPR affiliate, over 1,000 IRS employees at the Midwestern headquarters may be laid off this week. Shannon Ellis, the head of the National Treasury Employee Union’s Kansas City chapter, interviewed the reporter.
She clarified that in order to assist taxpayers and avoid a significant backlog, the Kansas City office has been open seven days a week and has “been short-staffed for years.”
For example, Ellis pointed out that approximately 812 of the 1000 people who could be laid off work solely on evaluating returns and distributing refunds, so the firings could cause delays for those who have their refund processed in Kansas City.
As some of her most “economically vulnerable” employees, Ellis made it clear that those in their first or second year of employment were most at risk. Furthermore, the union representative clarified that probationary employees are being laid off in large numbers because they have “less grounds to sue the government.”
Americans are concerned about more than just their IRS refunds
According to media reports, Elon Musk’s task force for restructuring the US government has requested access to massive amounts of taxpayer data, raising concerns about privacy violations and political rival retaliation.
According to reports from The Associated Press, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post on Monday, Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are attempting to gain access to the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) protected Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS) as part of their most recent round of cost-cutting measures.
The IDRS allows IRS employees to access sensitive taxpayer data such as Social Security numbers, home addresses, property records, and salary information, but DOGE has not yet gained access to the system. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, stated that direct access to the IRS database was necessary to eliminate deeply ingrained waste, fraud, and abuse.
Democratic lawmakers and other opponents of US President Donald Trump’s administration are concerned about the move because they believe Musk, the world’s richest person, is gaining control of significant portions of the federal government without oversight.
