Much of the Internal Revenue Service’s staff will head back to work without pay, many to process taxpayer refunds as filing season approaches, despite a lapse in funding for the agency during the partial government shutdown, the agency announced Tuesday.
The IRS’s new plan is part of a Trump administration effort to minimize the disruptive effects of the shutdown.
According to the plan, the IRS will exempt 46,052 of its employees from any shutdown in government services, or approximately 57.4 percent of its 80,265 employee workforce. Most of those workers — over 34,000 — are in the section of the agency responsible for processing tax returns and refunds.
Most of those workers were sent home as part of the Trump administration’s shutdown plan. But last week the Office of Management and Budget, a key part of the administration that helps direct the rest of the executive branch of the federal government, said it would issue guidance to order back much of the IRS in an effort to avoid any disruption in tax refunds as tax return season approaches.
The IRS will also continue its income verification service, which is essential to much of the consumer and small business lending industry, particularly the mortgage and real estate sector. According to the agency, it can use previously designated funds to continue that service, as well as drafting of new rules related to the tax cuts and reform law passed in 2017.
Separately, a request from a major federal employees union to block the IRS staffing move and other portions of the administration’s shutdown plan was rejected in court earlier Tuesday. The filing came from the National Treasury Employees Union, which counts 70,000 IRS employees among its membership.
“There is no doubt the IRS needs to get ready for the 2019 filing season that starts Jan. 28, and IRS employees want to work,” NTEU National President Tony Reardon said in a press release. “But the hard, cold reality is that they’ve already missed a paycheck and soon they’ll be asked to work for free for as long as the shutdown lasts.”
“I’m worried that highly trained IRS employees will consider quitting so they can get a job that actually comes with a paycheck,” Reardon said, hinting that the IRS could experience a similar drop in workforce that has begun to affect the Transportation Security Administration, as workers begin to call in sick rather than work without knowing if they’ll be paid on schedule.
The union has filed another request to hold the Trump administration’s orders on the grounds that they are in violation of the Constitution, which states that Congress must direct funding to government services. According to NTEU’s release, the next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31.
