The IRS brought back a small number of workers who had initially been furloughed during the ongoing government shutdown, as tax filing season inches closer.
About 112 of employees who were furloughed have been recalled, matching a trend at other agencies across the government, according to a contingency plan updated Oct. 18 but released Thursday. The IRS under the updated plan has 39,982 workers exempt from furlough, up from 39,870. A total of 74,299 employees work for the IRS.
A week into the government shutdown, nearly half of the agency was furloughed, with those working on the huge tax law implementation, filing season, and IT staying on. The shutdown has now lasted for more than a month, and this week became the longest shutdown in US history.
The decision to bring back more employees comes as the IRS is in a critical preparation period for tax filing season. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy Ken Kies said Oct. 22 there is a plan in place when workers return “to catch up with what has slipped.”
The recalls were mostly concentrated in the chief counsel and chief financial officer offices. In the legal arm, 45 workers were brought back and 31 were brought back in the finance office.
The agency on Oct. 20 brought back 45 lawyers in the Office of Chief Counsel who work on drafting the Republicans’ tax-and-spending law, Kies said.
At the same time, the Trump administration is attempting to fire more than 1,000 additional IRS workers during the shutdown.
In the first week of the shutdown, the IRS kept all employees working using the funds from the Democrats’ 2022 tax-and-climate law.
(Updated with additional reporting throughout.)
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