IRS moves operations employees to tax services for filing season amid workforce cuts

The Internal Revenue Service moved forward this week with plans to involuntarily move employees with no direct tax experience to perform customer service and analysis duties for this year’s filing season. 

According to email notices obtained by FedScoop, multiple IRS employees from the agency’s IT and human capital office were informed Monday that they were assigned to a 120-day involuntary detail to the agency’s Taxpayer Services division, as either a customer service representative or a tax examiner. The detail, effective Feb. 22, could be extended beyond the four-month period, per the notice.

Joseph Ziegler, the agency’s chief of internal consulting, stated in the notice that neither position will require direct engagement with taxpayers or answering phones, adding that the tax filing season is the “most important time” of the year for the agency. 

It is unclear how many employees were affected by the temporary reorganization, but it follows a series of shakeups and losses for the agency. Among those impacted were IT employees who were among a group of about 1,000 staffers abruptly moved from the IRS’s Office of the Chief Information Officer to the Office of the Chief Operations Officer last December. 

“How do you think Joe Taxpayer will feel about people with no tax experience handling their taxes?” one IRS IT employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told FedScoop. 

Other employees are taking the task in stride. One non-IT staffer impacted by the reassignment said the move is “ultimately to help support taxpayers, “no matter where we work.” 

Monday’s notice stated that training will begin Feb. 23, and employees can expect to receive FAQs for “common questions.” The agency sent another notice to management Thursday, stating that these supervisory roles will receive about nine weeks of instructor-led training, followed by four weeks of on-the-job instructor support

“We are glad to have you join us and look forward to your contributions to the One IRS Initiative as you assist with working taxpayer inventory,” the Thursday notice, obtained by FedScoop, stated. 

The IRS did not immediately respond to FedScoop’s request for comment. 

Just a few weeks ago, the Treasury Department’s watchdog issued a memo to the IRS commissioner stating that the IRS’s cuts over the past year had returned staffing to October 2021 levels, and warned that the agency’s IT and modernization projects could be delayed as a result. 

According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS lost about 19% of its staff as of October 2025, including 8,300 workers responsible for filing functions like returns processing, customer service, and updating computer systems. This included 16% of the IT workforce, which would have contributed to system updates to account for inflation and expiring or new tax provisions, the IG added. 

It remains to be seen whether the latest movement will further delay modernization efforts and increase the backlog of tax returns awaiting processing. 

“This takes the IT staff [who] know the background and could be supporting those efforts even further away from being able to complete those tasks,” an IT staffer said Thursday. 

FedScoop’s Matt Bracken contributed reporting.