US EditionIRS Faces Stiff Challenges in 2026 Tax Season Due to Workforce Cuts and New Laws, a Watchdog Says
IRS lost 19% of staff and faces IT modernization delays, risking refund delays and increased interest payments during the 2026 filing season, TIGTA warns.
- On Tuesday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released a report warning the IRS is underprepared for the 2026 filing season and cut its telephone level-of-service metric from 85% to 70%.
- TIGTA's memo said staffing had slipped back to October 2021 levels after the Internal Revenue Service lost 19,000 employees, including 8,300 key filing-season workers.
- With IT staffing down 16%, TIGTA found four contractors digitized just 4% of 10.7 million Form 1040 paper-filed returns as of Dec. 6, 2025.
- Reduced in-person coverage and phone assistance could lead to refund delays, as TIGTA warned about 35 of 360 Taxpayer Assistance Centers closed last month and more than $2.6 billion interest paid in 2025.
- This coming week, as the continuing resolution expires on Jan. 30, the IRS faces a 27% workforce reduction plus a $1.1 billion budget cut amid more than 100 tax-code changes.
53 Articles
53 Articles
Associated Press News
IRS faces stiff challenges in 2026 tax season due to workforce cuts and new laws, a watchdog says
The national taxpayer advocate says the 2026 tax filing season is likely to face significant challenges due to IRS workforce reductions and complex tax law changes.
IRS faces inventory backlog, IT project delays this filing season, watchdog says
The Treasury Department’s watchdog is warning the IRS that its workforce reductions and delays to modernization projects have left the tax agency in a precarious position as filing season begins. In a memo sent Monday to the IRS commissioner, Diana M. Tengesdal, deputy inspector general for audit, wrote that the agency’s cuts have brought staffing back to October 2021 levels, prior to the Inflation Reduction Act funding infusion aimed at streng…
IRS lowers phone service targets after falling short on filing season hiring goals
The IRS is lowering expectations for how many taxpayer calls it will answer during this year’s filing season, after falling short of several goals to increase frontline staffing. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, in a report publicly released Tuesday, said the IRS is lowering its telephone level of service target from 85% to 70%. The level-of-service metric the IRS has used for more than 20 years only accounts for about a qu…
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