The cuts are part of President Donald Trump's sweeping downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump's biggest campaign donor.
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,“ said Musk, holding the power tool aloft as a stage prop to symbolize the drastic slashing of government jobs.
Christy Armstrong, IRS director of talent acquisition, teared up as she told employees on a phone call that about 6,000 of their colleagues would be laid off and encouraged them to support each other, a worker who was on the call said.
The layoffs are expected to total 6,700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers. Republicans have opposed the expansion, arguing that it would lead to harassment of ordinary Americans.
Independent budget analysts had estimated that the staff expansion under Biden would work to boost government revenue and help narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits.
Those fired include revenue agents, customer-service workers, specialists who hear appeals of tax disputes, and IT workers, and impact employees across all 50 states, sources said. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration's federal layoffs have focused on workers across the government who are new to their positions and have fewer protections than longer-tenured employees.
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“What the American people really need to understand is that the funds that are collected through the Internal Revenue Service, they fund so many programs that we use every day in our society,“ Ellis told Reuters.
The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that regulate big business -- including those that oversee Musk's companies SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink.
Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team has also canceled contracts worth about $8.5 billion involving foreign aid, diversity training and other initiatives opposed by Trump.
Democratic critics have said Trump is exceeding his constitutional authority and hacking away at popular and critical government programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.
Some agencies have struggled to comply with the rapid-fire directives Trump has issued since taking office a month ago. Workers who oversee U.S. nuclear weapons were fired and then recalled, while medicines and food exports have been stranded in warehouses by Trump's freeze on foreign aid.
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