IRS Workforce Cuts, Leadership Departures Ripple Across Agency
The IRS right now isn't the same agency it was at the start of this year.
That's because about 20% of IRS workers have signaled they want to leave or have been fired. The ripple effects of this exodus could go far, not just for the IRS itself, but for businesses and individual taxpayers trying to file their returns.
Roughly half of the 30 people at the top of the IRS organizational chart have left, many because of Trump administration decisions that stretch boundaries of the law. Those departures in particular erode an important layer of defense to the IRS's most important missions: taxpayer data security and a fair tax system, former and current agency officials said.
Most recently, two executives brought on to help the IRS build up its enforcement and reporting of digital assets left and were replaced by longtime IRS official Trish Turner.
The leadership departures, combined with the broader cuts across different levels of the agency, make it harder for the IRS to collect revenue for the government and provide help to taxpayers. The IRS plans to lean more heavily on technology to make up for the lost workers.
In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporters Erin Slowey and Erin Schilling discuss who's replacing executives who have left, the impacts of the high turnover, and what happens when workers who want to leave can't.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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14:19
Why GOP Lawmakers Are Targeting the US Audit Board
House Republicans are pushing a plan to dismantle the US audit board and send its watchdog duties to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a federal budget-cutting process. It's not the first GOP attempt to rein in the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, but this time it comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration's sweeping drive to cut regulations and downsize government.
Congress set up the board in the early 2000s to restore investor trust following high-profile corporate accounting scandals at Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.
The move to eliminate PCAOB threatens to derail independent oversight of auditors charged with vetting the financial reports of public companies worth trillions in stock value, according to Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Amanda Iacone.
On this episode of Talking Tax, Iacone speaks with Benjamin Freed, Bloomberg Tax team lead for state tax and financial accounting, about why the PCAOB is being targeted now, previous attempts to curb its influence, and what a potential disbanding could mean for audit firms.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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12:30
Congress Returns With Ambitious Plans to Move on Tax Extensions
Before leaving for a two-week break, House Republican lawmakers adopted a Senate budget outline to expedite legislation to push through trillions of dollars in tax cuts, raise the debt ceiling, and slash billions in spending.
Now comes the hard part where policy committees need to fill in the fine details. The Senate framework called for $1.5 trillion in new tax cuts, to enact policies like some proposed by President Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
The Senate's use of a so-called current policy baseline wipes away, on paper, trillions of dollars expected to add to the deficit from extending the expiring parts of the GOP's 2017 tax law.
The House is seen as taking the lead, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) publicly aiming for a Memorial Day deadline to get a bill on Trump's desk.
In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax federal editor Kim Dixon talks to congressional reporters Chris Cioffi and Zach Cohen about what to expect in the next work period.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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15:38
IRS Workforce Cuts to Impede Progress on AI, Modernization
Deep cuts to the IRS workforce mean the agency might have to rely more heavily on technology to keep up taxpayer services and enforcement.
The IRS is set to lose 20,000 workers after the Trump administration's second deferred resignation offer. That's in addition to thousands who have already left or are on administrative leave.
Barry Johnson, former IRS chief data and analytics officer, oversaw the rollout of artificial intelligence at the agency before his retirement in January. When he left, he said the IRS was piloting an AI tool to help employees search the Internal Revenue Code. The agency also used AI to improve taxpayer services, such as with chatbots, and to make enforcement more efficient.
But the workforce cuts could hinder that progress, Johnson said.
"I'm especially concerned with proposed cuts in what we call the field staff, the folks who process tax returns and conduct audits," he said. "Because to the extent that we lose that subject matter expertise, our ability to train and validate AI applications will be diminished."
In this episode of Talking Tax, Johnson talks to Bloomberg Tax reporter Erin Schilling about the challenges of relying on technology with a shrunken staff, how the research division uses taxpayer data while upholding confidentiality, and what it means for the agency when top executives leave.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
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20:32
Tariffs, Trump's Global Tax Snub Hit OECD Negotiations
The Trump administration's massive new tariff pronouncements, on top of its pullback from the OECD’s global tax deal, have cast doubt on the future of global tax policy efforts.
The two-pillar OECD-led agreement seeks to create a 15% global minimum tax for large multinational corporations and change the way the companies allocate their profits among countries.
While the US is still taking part in some negotiations, it has rejected key elements of the deal that it says infringe on US tax sovereignty. The administration has especially taken issue with the deal’s undertaxed profits rule, which countries can use to tax companies from other jurisdictions if they aren't paying the minimum tax there. And it has raised objections to countries' imposition of digital services taxes.
On Wednesday, President Trump announced a 90-day pause on higher reciprocal tariffs that hit many US trade partners earlier in the day, and raised duties on China to 125%.
The conflict could spark a reaction away from global tax policy negotiations and toward more bilateral, one-on-one dealings between countries as nations look to retaliate or cut a deal with the US.
On this episode of Talking Tax, reporter Caleb Harshberger talks with PwC global tax policy leader Will Morris and Michael Plowgian, a partner at KPMG and former deputy assistant secretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department. They discuss the current state of negotiations, the complexity of numerous moving parts, and prospects for the US's ongoing role vis à vis the European Union and other nations.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.
Talking Tax, from Bloomberg Tax, is a weekly discussion of the most pressing issues facing tax and accounting professionals. Each week the podcast features discussions with lawmakers, federal regulators, lawyers, and journalists. From the courts to Capitol Hill to the IRS, Talking Tax has it covered.
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