IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told lawmakers on Tuesday that the agency is aiming to hire 8,000 enforcement agents by the end of 2025 and other support employees, but high attrition rates may hindering efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal is to bring agency\u2019s total headcount from 90,000 to just over 100,000 in the next three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut not much [over that],\u201d Werfel said, who was confirmed in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lawmakers on the House\u2019s oversight committee were keen on hearing hiring breakdowns for the IRS, especially under the Inflation Reduction Act, which will bring the agency a total of $80 billion over the next decade if Republicans don\u2019t seek to peel it back via legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe IRS in my opinion needs to invest in highly skilled experts,\u201d said Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich. \u201cNot simply hire more employees, but higher quality, not so much quantity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hiring could be hamstrung by high attrition rates that continued to affect certain occupations disproportionately. According to the Government Accountability Office, the IRS has particular difficulty brining on and retaining employees who process returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the critical filing season, the attrition rate for those workers was 16% compared to the agency\u2019s overall rate of 7.5%, as of last year. Additionally, the agency loses about 23% of new onboards within two or three years, according to the watchdog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In arguing for continued recruitment efforts, Werfel has also repeatedly reassured the public and lawmakers that funded initiatives would not levied against law-abiding, low- or middle-income Americans, despite the picture that some have painted of armed agents banging down doors or weaponized employers working on a political agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIs your employee pool about 50-50? Or are we tilting too much towards one political belief?\u201d asked Wisconsin Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman. \u201cDo you have any idea?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe absolutely don\u2019t ask that question,\u201d Werfel responded. \u201cI think it would be inappropriate for us to ask that of our staff. We do make it clear that it is a fundamental value of the IRS that politics has no place in our operations or decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Werfel said in his testimony that expanded enforcement will be focused on taxpayers with complex filings and \u201chigh-dollar noncompliance.\u201d The audit rate will also not increase for small businesses and households earning $400,000 per year or less, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In September, the agency announced it was hiring for 3,700 such specialized enforcement positions. The vast majority of employees, about 97%, Werfel said, are not armed, and most of the new hires will not be either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnly a very small number of IRS employees carry firearms as part of their job,\u201d he added. \u201cAll of these employees are in our Criminal Investigation Division, and they carry firearms to assist with their law-enforcement work, which includes stopping drug cartels, human trafficking and financial crimes, including those crimes perpetrated by groups supporting terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawmakers on the House\u2019s oversight committee were keen on hearing hiring breakdowns for the IRS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":79021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":31,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[38,31,33,9,40],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3269],"class_list":["post-27015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight","category-watchdogs"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"JB3445BDD5EJXEOCDK6KXXAWGI","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/2023\/10\/24\/high-attrition-erodes-irs-staffing-progress-watchdog-says\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n