Latest news with #TIGTA
Business Mayor
07-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
IRS loses nearly 1 in 3 tax auditors in DOGE cuts, watchdog report finds
A traffic light is red outside the U.S. Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 2025. Kent Nishimura | Reuters The IRS has lost nearly one-third of tax auditors amid sweeping cuts from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, a watchdog report found. As of March 2025, the agency's workforce had fallen by more than 11,000 employees, or 11%, due to probationary terminations and the deferred resignation program, according to a May 2 report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The percentage of separated employees was significantly higher for certain departments — including so-called 'revenue agents,' who conduct audits for the IRS. As of March, the agency lost 3,623 revenue agents, or 31%, according to the report. More from Personal Finance: What the Fed's upcoming interest rate decision means for you Some prices are falling. 'They're not here to stay,' economist says Your Social Security card will soon be available digitally The TIGTA report came the same day as President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2026 discretionary budget request, which called for a nearly $2.5 billion IRS budget cut to end the 'weaponization of IRS enforcement.' U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday defended the reduced spending request in a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He said the federal government has cut $2 billion from the agency's information technology budget 'without any operational disruptions.' As of April 25, the IRS processed more than 140 million returns during the 2025 filing season, slightly more than the previous year, according to agency data. Read More Japan government pension acts on population strain The Treasury did not respond to CNBC's request for comment about the TIGTA report. IRS cuts could help 'wealthy tax dodgers' In a March letter to former acting IRS commissioner Melanie Krause, more than 130 House Democrats warned that cutting compliance staff could limit the agency's ability to collect unpaid taxes from 'wealthy tax dodgers.' The lawmakers were responding to IRS staffing cuts that began in late February. Those cuts hurt the agency's ability to 'improve collections, crack down on complex tax avoidance and evasion by high-income taxpayers and large businesses,' the lawmakers wrote. Audits of the top 0.1% of taxpayers returned more than $6 in revenue for every dollar spent in resources, according to a 2023 working paper from researchers at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wharton School and University of Sydney. At the House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Bessent said 'collections' were among his IRS priorities. But he expects to meet revenue goals via 'smarter IT' and the 'AI boom' rather than via 'unseasoned collections agents.' 'I would expect that collection would continue to be very robust,' he said. READ SOURCE
CNBC
07-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
IRS loses nearly 1 in 3 tax auditors in DOGE cuts, watchdog report finds
A traffic light is red outside the U.S. Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 2025. The IRS has lost nearly one-third of tax auditors amid sweeping cuts from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, a watchdog report found. As of March 2025, the agency's workforce had fallen by more than 11,000 employees, or 11%, due to probationary terminations and the deferred resignation program, according to a May 2 report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The percentage of separated employees was significantly higher for certain departments — including so-called "revenue agents," who conduct audits for the IRS. As of March, the agency lost 3,623 revenue agents, or 31%, according to the report. More from Personal Finance: What the Fed's upcoming interest rate decision means for you Some prices are falling. 'They're not here to stay,' economist says Your Social Security card will soon be available digitally The TIGTA report came the same day as President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2026 discretionary budget request, which called for a nearly $2.5 billion IRS budget cut to end the "weaponization of IRS enforcement." U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday defended the reduced spending request in a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He said the federal government has cut $2 billion from the agency's information technology budget "without any operational disruptions." As of April 25, the IRS processed more than 140 million returns during the 2025 filing season, slightly more than the previous year, according to agency data. The Treasury did not respond to CNBC's request for comment about the TIGTA report. In a March letter to former acting IRS commissioner Melanie Krause, more than 130 House Democrats warned that cutting compliance staff could limit the agency's ability to collect unpaid taxes from "wealthy tax dodgers." The lawmakers were responding to IRS staffing cuts that began in late February. Those cuts hurt the agency's ability to "improve collections, crack down on complex tax avoidance and evasion by high-income taxpayers and large businesses," the lawmakers wrote. Audits of the top 0.1% of taxpayers returned more than $6 in revenue for every dollar spent in resources, according to a 2023 working paper from researchers at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wharton School and University of Sydney. At the House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Bessent said "collections" were among his IRS priorities. But he expects to meet revenue goals via "smarter IT" and the "AI boom" rather than via "unseasoned collections agents." "I would expect that collection would continue to be very robust," he said.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
IRS cut 11% workforce as of March 2025: TIGTA
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has reported that the IRS has seen approximately 11% reduction in workforce, with 11,443 employees affected by March 2025. 'We initiated this review to provide an update on the IRS's efforts to reduce its workforce. This report provides a snapshot of IRS business units impacted,' the TIGTA said. The reduction follows the US President Donald Trump administration's deferred resignation programme (DRP) and probationary terminations, impacting the IRS's operational capacity. According to TIGTA, the DRP allowed federal employees to voluntarily resign with pay until 30 September 2025. The IRS records indicate 7,315 probationary employees received termination notices, while 4,128 employees accepted the DRP. This resulted in an 11% workforce reduction, from approximately 103,000 employees as of February 2025. The separations have disproportionately impacted specific positions within the IRS, the report said. For instance, around 31% of revenue agents were separated, compared with only 5% of IT management. Nationwide, the workforce reduction has affected every state, plus the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Iowa, Colorado, Mississippi, and Idaho experienced the highest percentage of employee separations relative to their taxation workforce. The IRS issued termination notices to 7,310 probationary employees in February 2025 and five more in early March 2025. These employees were informed of their termination due to performance issues. TIGTA said: 'At the time the probationary employees were issued termination notices, several senior IRS officials raised concerns that many of these employees did not have documented performance issues.' In March 2025, a federal court ruled for the reinstatement of the probationary employees. The IRS has since recalled these employees, placing them on administrative leave. The final outcome for these employees remains uncertain as legal proceedings continue. "IRS cut 11% workforce as of March 2025: TIGTA " was originally created and published by The Accountant, a GlobalData owned brand.
CBS News
06-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
The IRS has lost almost one-third of its tax auditors after 2 months of DOGE cuts, report says
The Trump administration's plan to trim the IRS workforce has resulted in almost one-third of its tax auditors leaving the agency through March, according to a report from the U.S. Treasury Department's watchdog. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has sought to trim the federal workforce through a combination of layoffs and so-called deferred resignation. Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, said on the electric vehicle maker's April 22 earnings call that DOGE's efforts "in addressing waste and fraud" will "get the country back on track." The IRS has been a focus of DOGE's cost-cutting efforts, with plans to trim as much as 40% of its workforce this year. Through March, those efforts have resulted in the tax agency losing about 11% of its workforce, the May 2 report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found. But revenue agents — the IRS workers who perform audits — have seen a much bigger hit, with 31% of those workers, or about 3,600 auditors, taking either the deferred resignation plan or getting fired in the first three months of 2025, the report found. Losing a large share of auditors could impact the federal government's ability to collect tax revenue, given that these agents typically handle cases involving wealthy taxpayers or corporations, experts say. "You lose the very staff trained to keep high-end taxpayers and corporate tax payers in compliance," noted Emily DiVito, senior adviser on economic policy at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative and a former policy adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS. She added, "You can see some behavioral effects when taxpayers, especially those that really don't want to pay their bills, come to accept there is very little risk to not paying at all, or even filing." Reached for comment, a Treasury spokeswoman said, "The Biden Administration grew the IRS from 79,431 to 102,309 personnel. Under new leadership, approximately the same number of employees have left the IRS, with a vast majority leaving voluntarily through the Deferred Resignation Program. The roll back of wasteful Biden-era hiring surges, and consolidation of critical support functions are vital to improve both efficiency and quality of service. The Secretary is committed to ensuring that efficiency is realized while providing the collections, privacy, and customer service the American people deserve." The White House didn't immediately return a request for comment about the TIGTA report. While the TIGTA report didn't explain why auditor departures outpaced that of overall cuts at the IRS, the tax agency had made an effort under the Biden administration to hire more auditors in order to beef up revenue collection. In February 2024, the IRS had said it expected to collect hundreds of billions in additional taxes after using funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to hire more auditors. Because the DOGE cuts have focused on firing so-called "probationary workers," or junior federal employees who typically have less than a year or two on the job, there may have been more newly hired auditors who were impacted by the reductions, DeVito said. Reducing federal revenue? Auditing wealthy Americans and corporations can be lucrative for the federal government. In fiscal year 2023, auditors recommended an additional $32 billion in tax assessments, the TIGTA report said. And every $1 spent on auditing the top 0.1% of earners can return about $26 in tax revenue, according to an analysis from Better IRS, an advocacy group for free tax filing. The cuts to the IRS' auditing force raises questions about the effectiveness of DOGE's efforts, given that the tax agency is responsible for collecting the bulk of the nation's revenue, DeVito added. The combination of individual and corporate income taxes provides about 60 cents for every $1 in federal revenue, with the remaining 40 cents coming from payroll taxes and fees, such as paying admission to national parks, according to the Treasury Department. DOGE's cost-cutting efforts may end up costing almost as much as they've saved, according to an analysis last month from the nonpartisan research group the Partnership for Public Service. DOGE claims to have saved $165 billion, but the Partnership for Public Service estimates that the savings have come at a cost of $135 billion due to paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers and lost productivity. That figure also excludes the impact of multiple lawsuits filed against DOGE's actions, as well as lost tax revenue due to IRS cuts, the group said. The IRS could forego $323 billion in tax revenue over the next decade due to lower tax compliance and a decline in audits, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. "The argument from DOGE is to save money — that if we don't have as big of a federal workforce, then we are saving the government money," DeVito said. But given the potential to lose out on tax revenue, the IRS reduction "simply doesn't make sense," she said.
Fox News
20-03-2025
- Business
- Fox News
How to protect your data from IRS scammers this tax season
Scammers try to impersonate everything and everyone. They email you pretending to be your boss and ask for money, call you claiming your Microsoft account has been hacked or send phishing links for fake package deliveries. However, the most common type of impersonation scam occurs when bad actors pose as government agencies, especially the IRS. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is aware of this and has issued a new warning for 2025 about text messages impersonating the Internal Revenue Service. I will discuss everything you need to know to avoid this new tax scam and protect your personal information. To understand the new IRS scam, let's first examine what it's based on. The IRS has been sending out COVID-19 stimulus payments worth up to $1,400 to around 1 million tax filers who missed them. Initially, these payments were self-claimed, but now the IRS is automatically issuing them to ensure eligible taxpayers get what they're owed. This provision, known as the Recovery Rebate Credit, allows people to claim missed stimulus payments from 2021. If you were eligible but didn't receive the funds, you can still claim them by filing a tax return by April 15, 2025. Payments will be deposited directly using the banking information listed on the taxpayer's 2023 return or sent as a paper check. However, TIGTA is warning that scammers are targeting taxpayers with fraudulent text messages, as reported by TaxAct. These fake texts claim that recipients will receive an Economic Impact Payment from the IRS and often ask for sensitive personal information, like bank account details or your Social Security number. Scammers use this information to steal your identity or financial data. The IRS has made it clear that eligible taxpayers who didn't claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax return will receive their payments automatically; no action is required. Most phones and PCs today have enough protections to keep bad actors at bay, so in almost every case, the only way anyone can access your device and data is if you give it to them. Hackers often send phishing links that impersonate a government agency, someone you know or a trusted brand, tricking you into clicking. Once you do, malware is installed on your device to quietly collect useful data and send it to the hackers. That's why the most important part of staying safe online is knowing how to distinguish between legitimate and scam messages emails or calls. For example, you can easily tell if a communication is from the IRS or a scam by focusing on the following key factors. 1. Install strong antivirus software: As scammers increasingly impersonate government agencies like the IRS through phishing links and fake messages, installing strong antivirus software is crucial to protect yourself from these threats. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Antivirus software can detect and block suspicious links, warn you about potentially harmful websites and prevent malware from being installed on your device. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices. 2. Always verify the authenticity of unsolicited communications: If you receive an unexpected email, text or phone call claiming to be from a government agency, it's essential to confirm its authenticity. Scammers often create a sense of urgency to trick you into taking immediate action. To verify, always use official contact details from government websites. Avoid clicking any links in the message and reach out to the agency directly to confirm whether the communication is legitimate. 3. Reach out directly if you're unsure: When you're unsure about the legitimacy of a message or request, contact the government agency directly using verified contact details. Never respond to the message or click on any links within it. By calling or visiting the agency's official website, you can ensure you're communicating with authorized representatives and avoid scammers impersonating government officials. 4. Use strong, unique passwords to protect your accounts: One of the best ways to protect your sensitive information from scammers is by using strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts. Avoid using easily guessable passwords like "password123" or "qwerty." Instead, create complex passwords that include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. Also, consider using a password manager to keep track of your credentials and ensure you're using different passwords for each account. Get more details about my best expert-reviewed password managers of 2025 here. 5. Monitor your tax account: Regularly check your IRS account at to confirm the status of your tax return, verify that no unauthorized tax filings have occurred and update personal and contact information as needed. 6. Report suspicious tax-related activities immediately: If you suspect a scam or fraudulent activity, it's crucial to report it to the relevant authorities right away. Whether you've received a suspicious message or believe your information has been compromised, reporting it helps prevent further harm. The IRS and other agencies have dedicated channels for reporting fraud, so take action as soon as you can to protect yourself and others from these schemes. 7. Invest in personal data removal services: Use a personal data removal service to remove your personal information from data broker and people-finder sites, which scammers often use to find phone numbers and email addresses. While no service promises to remove all your data from the internet, having a removal service is great if you want to constantly monitor and automate the process of removing your information from hundreds of sites continuously over a longer period of time. Check out my top picks for data removal services here. 8. Use direct deposit for refunds: This is the safest way to receive your tax refund, reducing the risk of mail theft, forgery or fraudulent check cashing. 9. Be wary of spoofed websites: Type the address of your actual tax prep site rather than clicking on a link from an email or advertisement. Investigate the domain before entering any confidential information. 10. Use an identity theft protection service: An identity theft protection service provides personal and financial monitoring and will try to help you if your identity is ever compromised. Identity theft companies can monitor personal information like your Social Security number, phone number and email address and alert you if it is being sold on the dark web or being used to open an account. They can also assist you in freezing your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals. See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft. Tax season is here, and with it comes an increase in scams impersonating the IRS and targeting taxpayers. The good news is these scams are often easy to spot. If you receive a text message from the IRS asking you to provide personal information, it's a red flag; it's not from them. Be especially cautious of any links included in the message. A legitimate URL will always end in ".gov." However, scammers may try to trick you by altering the link slightly, so look closely for any misspellings or strange characters. If in doubt, always verify through official channels. Do you think AI is making it easier for scammers to impersonate legitimate organizations like the IRS? Let us know by writing us at For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Alert: Malware steals bank cards and passwords from millions of devices. Follow Kurt on his social channels: Answers to the most-asked CyberGuy questions: New from Kurt: Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
