IRS Hiring Efforts Likely Stymied in Trump’s Worker Firing Rule

The Trump administration’s sweeping changes to how federal workers are classified likely will harm the IRS’s ability to hire, and renew concerns that the agency could succumb to political pressures.

The Office of Personnel Management Thursday released a final rule that will loosen job protections for policy-related positions, making it easier for political appointees to effectively fire them and pick replacements without violating civil service laws. OPM estimates the government will reclassify 50,000 people—though which positions are unclear—with the president having the ultimate say on the changes.

The vagueness of the rule’s scope gives agency heads substantial power over their workforce classifications, former IRS officials said. With reduced job protections, IRS career employees warning against illegal moves could be fired, escalating political power over tax administration.

“With trust in the IRS already at very low levels, this change can only make things worse—making the IRS a ping-pong ball, being whipped back and forth between whichever party is in charge of the Executive Branch,” Nina Olson, former Taxpayer Advocate who’s now executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, said in an email.

The IRS already has faced trouble hiring for the 2026 filing season, onboarding more than 1,000 fewer employees than its goal, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The agency is currently hiring for tax attorneys, according to USA Jobs.

Potential for Broad Impact

It’s unclear which positions at the IRS will be reclassified. The edict affects policy-related positions, which could be broadly interpreted to almost any job at the IRS.

The IRS Office of Chief Counsel is responsible for drafting agency regulations, but those offices are staffed mostly by federal attorneys. The Treasury Office of Tax Policy also helps with the drafting and answering regulatory policy questions.

The OPM rule states government attorneys in policy-influencing positions could be subject to the change but the rule doesn’t specifically target them.

The IRS also employs tax specialists—who offer technical guidance in its enforcement arm—and customer service representatives, who help taxpayers comply with tax laws.

“How this new rule impacts the IRS will depend on who, if anyone, involved in implementation rather than policy formulation is covered,” former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said by email. Werfel is also a Bloomberg Tax columnist.

When Trump tried to enact a similar change at the end of his first term, David Kautter—assistant treasury secretary for tax policy at the time—said he estimated it would affect less than two dozen people across IRS and Treasury.

“The vast majority of people at the IRS aren’t making tax policy decisions, they’re implementing decisions that others make,” Kautter said in an interview Friday.

The leaders of the IRS enforcement arm, such as the chief tax compliance officer, are positions that could be affected, Kautter said.

Filing Season

Federal government jobs typically are lauded for stability, but the changed classification will make it harder to convince people to apply, said Gabe Menchaca, a senior federal workforce analyst at the Niskanen Center.

And the chaotic year at the IRS has already impeded hiring efforts for filing season, which started last month. TIGTA expects the lack of staff will lead to delayed refunds and return processing. The hiring efforts come after the IRS lost a fourth of its workers spurred by the Trump administration’s campaign to downsize the federal government.

“When it comes to the busy part of filing season, performance challenges undoubtedly always result back to the decisions you make about the workforce,” Menchaca said.

The change may also make it easier for administration officials to use the IRS for historically unpopular political targeting, When former President Richard Nixon tried to use the agency against his political enemies in the 1970s, Congress passed a law making it a crime.

The Trump administration has pushed the boundaries of the law in the past year with threats to Harvard University’s tax-exempt status and enacting a data-sharing agreement between IRS and Department of Homeland Security to use taxpayer information to help with deportation efforts. Multiple IRS executives quit because of administration pressure.