TAX DAY MIRACLE: Over 20K IRS Employees Took Trump’s Second Buyout Offer

Around 22,000 Internal Revenue Service employees have accepted President Donald Trump’s latest buyout offer, calling it quits at the service responsible for collecting taxes, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The IRS turnover marks a dramatic shift from the Biden administration, when the IRS staff was beefed up to around 100,000 employees. The IRS cuts have reportedly forced the service to drop the number of audits it’s able to perform this year and could cause issues for Americans who call the IRS for help with their tax filings. A spokesman for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the secretary remains “committed to ensuring that efficiency is realized while providing the collections, privacy and customer service the American people deserve,” the Times reported.

Shortly after Trump took office in January, his administration offered federal employees the chance to quit their work while remaining on the payroll through September, and around 75,000 federal workers accepted the offer. Earlier this month, a second buyout offer went out to some federal workers, extending the deadline for employees who did not jump on the first offer, Axios reported. Acceptance deadlines on the second offer ranged from April 7 to April 18, according to The Washington Post.

In addition to the resignations at the IRS, around 7,000 probationary workers were fired by the Trump administration, but those firings have been challenged in court. If the firings go through, the IRS could lose up to one-third of the workforce with which it entered the year. The losses also include senior leadership at the IRS, such as Melanie Krause, the acting IRS commissioner who announced her resignation last week.

Some, such as Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, have lamented the IRS staff cuts. In a post on X, Spanberger argued that the cuts are “making it harder for people across the Commonwealth to get the help they need.” Under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS was given a massive increase in funding and had the green light to hire 87,000 new employees over the next decade.

As IRS employees jump ship, President Trump is hoping to revamp the government’s “outdated paper-based payment systems.” Last month, Trump signed an executive order “to modernize how the government handles money, switching from old-fashioned paper-based payments to fast, secure electronic payments.”

“President Trump is making government work better for the American people,” the White House stated.