During the Biden administration, Joe Biden wanted to add nearly 90,000 IRS agents, so he gave the agency a fat check from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). When Trump was campaigning, he vowed to cut that workforce down considerably.
He got the excuse he needed with the government shutdown.
The IRA allocated $80 billion in new funding for the IRS that was to be spread out over a 10-year period.
However, once the GOP took over, it managed to claw back a lot of that money.
Prior to that, however, the Biden administration had stated that the IRS boost was going to be good for the average American, as the new agents could properly enforce tax laws.
This, of course, was portrayed as more audits of the average person by the GOP, and that funding was quickly targeted, as were any increases in staffing for the agency.
Donald Trump did not want the government to shut down, but if it did, he made it quite clear that he was going to make the most of it.
Trump vowed that if the shutdown had any length to it, he was going to start eliminating wasteful agencies and trimming the government payroll.
The GOP offered to give the Democrats the subsidies for Obamacare they pretended this was about, but the Dems balked at a one-year extension.
With no end in sight, Trump is now starting to make those cuts he promised.
If you filed for an income tax extension, your due date is next week, but don’t expect your return to get processed very quickly, as Trump just took a hatchet to the agency.
Nearly half the workforce faced cuts, with roughly 34,000 of the agency's employees likely to be furloughed, which, for all intents and purposes, means the IRS will be shut down until the government reopens. There will still be staff processing tax returns, but with those numbers, expect it to be at a snail’s pace. Furthermore, the non-essential services, such as call centers, will be closed completely.
National Treasury Employees Union President Doreen Greenwald stated, "Taxpayers around the country will now have a much harder time getting the assistance they need, just as they get ready to file their extension returns due next week. Every day these employees are locked out of work is another day of frustration for taxpayers and a growing backlog of work that sits and waits for the shutdown to end.”
I suspect Democrats factored this into their planning, knowing that frustrations over returns will be directed at Trump and Republicans. So, while I was originally hopeful this week would be the end, based on comments from Senator Schumer (D-NY), who is just giddy about the shutdown, and Trump’s stubbornness, this does not appear like it will end anytime soon.
