The IRS is expected to begin laying off employees tomorrow as part of the job cuts slicing through the federal government, a union official told workers Wednesday.
Though it could potentially disrupt tax-filing season, Shannon Ellis, a local union official, said in a video message that an indeterminate number of newer hires at the agency’s Kansas City facility will be let go.
Layoffs are also expected at other IRS facilities.
“We received notification today that employees in SB/SE who are on probation are scheduled for termination,” she said in a video message, referring to the agency’s Small Business/Self Employed Division.
In another video message, Ellis said: “Our probationary employees will be removed as of tomorrow — we don’t know what time, we don’t know how it’s going to happen, we don’t even know if it includes all of our probationary employees,” she said, adding probationary periods can be either one or two years from the time someone begins work.
“We don’t know for sure if it is going to impact other than probationary employees,” said Ellis, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 66.
A Treasury Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The layoffs are part of a broader Trump administration initiative to shrink the overall federal workforce by shedding newer hires across agencies who enjoy fewer workplace protections. They will come as millions of Americans started filing their taxes for calendar year 2024, beginning last month and lasting until April 15.
The IRS is especially vulnerable to the initiative because it has been on a hiring binge in recent years as part of a sweeping effort to improve services at the agency. Between 2021 and 2024, the workforce increased by one quarter, to more than 100,000.
Getting rid of newer employees could hit the agency especially hard because it has long been plagued by high attrition rates and has a disproportionately older workforce. Nearly two-thirds of IRS employees are eligible to retire in the next six years.
Former IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig — who ran the agency during President Donald Trump’s first term — protested the planned layoffs.
“An underfunded IRS significantly benefits unidentified, noncompliant taxpayers at the direct expense of compliant taxpayers,” he said, writing on LinkedIn.