IRS Phone Support Faces Delays Amid Staffing Cuts \ Newslooks \ Washington DC \ Mary Sidiqi \ Evening Edition \ Taxpayers are already experiencing longer IRS phone wait times this filing season, and experts warn the situation could worsen in 2026 due to major staffing cuts. The agency has laid off thousands and may reduce its workforce by nearly half. Critics fear this will severely impact tax collection and customer service.
Quick Looks
- IRS phone wait times are up significantly this tax season.
- Experts expect delays to worsen as mass layoffs continue.
- 7,000 probationary employees laid off in early 2025.
- Up to 20,000 IRS staff — 25% of the agency — may be cut.
- IRS employees were barred from accepting buyouts until after April 15.
- Federal judge ordered reinstatement of laid-off workers, but status unclear.
- The cuts are part of Trump administration’s federal workforce reduction effort.
- Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is driving the plan.
- Refunds are up year-over-year, but service levels are dropping.
- Experts warn 2026 filing season could face massive disruptions.
Deep Look
As the 2025 tax filing season winds down, taxpayers across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to get assistance from the IRS, with longer-than-normal wait times on the agency’s phone lines — a situation that experts warn could worsen significantly in the coming year due to widespread layoffs and buyouts slashing the agency’s workforce.
While the processing pace of tax returns remains comparable to last year, legal and tax professionals say the real bottleneck is in customer service and collections assistance, where phone lines are jammed and IRS agents are overwhelmed.
“It’s noticeably worse this year already,” said Eric Santos, executive director of the Georgia Tax Clinic, which assists low-income clients with IRS issues. “We’re seeing that agents just don’t have the bandwidth. Some tell us outright that they don’t have time to review certain cases.”
According to Santos and other legal advocates, the sheer reduction in personnel is spreading the workload dangerously thin. The situation stems from an aggressive federal workforce reduction strategy spearheaded by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The initiative aims to shrink the size of the federal government, reduce spending, and “modernize” agency structures by closing offices, laying off probationary employees, and offering buyouts via a controversial “deferred resignation program.”
This year, the IRS laid off about 7,000 probationary workers starting in February — a move later blocked by a federal judge, who ordered their reinstatement. But it remains unclear whether any of those employees have been returned to their posts.
That was only the beginning. Earlier this month, the IRS began a second wave of layoffs, with internal projections suggesting as many as 20,000 workers — roughly 25% of the agency’s workforce — could lose their jobs. While buyouts are being offered to many senior employees, those offers were not allowed to be accepted until after April 15, the end of tax filing season, to avoid service disruptions — though disruption already seems unavoidable.
Data Stable, But Warnings Mount
Despite the turbulence inside the agency, IRS processing statistics remain on par with past years. As of early April, the IRS reported processing 101.4 million returns, just shy of the 101.8 million filed during the same time last year. Refunds are actually up — 67.7 million issued so far, compared to 66.7 million in 2024.
However, longer wait times, unreturned calls, and limited access to case workers are being reported by tax clinics and practitioners across the country.
Sakinah Tillman, director of the University of the District of Columbia Tax Clinic, noted that while refund timelines haven’t slipped yet, phone access to the IRS has. “For clients trying to resolve debts or negotiate settlements, not being able to get anyone on the line is a huge problem,” she said. “What happens when people want to become compliant but simply can’t connect?”
That’s a problem that former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is all too familiar with. He warned that even in stable years, the IRS tends to fall behind in the latter half of the filing season.
“If they go ahead with cuts of 10,000 or 20,000 employees,” Koskinen said, “we’re headed back to some of the worst taxpayer service in years. And that ‘priority line’ for taxpayers? It’s going to become an oxymoron.”
Treasury and Political Context
The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, has attempted to frame the cuts as part of a broader efficiency strategy. A spokesperson speaking to the Associated Press anonymously said the restructuring is intended to “modernize” the agency and streamline services, despite the loss of personnel.
But critics question whether these changes — coupled with an increasing caseload and a complex tax code — will result in anything but further delays, mounting errors, and frustrated taxpayers.
Legal experts in the tax sector also note that the loss of institutional knowledge — particularly among seasoned agents accepting buyouts — will hurt not just service quality but also the IRS’s ability to collect taxes and pursue enforcement.
Looking ahead to 2026, the concern is more acute.
“We’re potentially talking about half the workforce being gone,” said Santos. “That’s not something you can just fix with better software or a chatbot. These are real people trying to help other people comply with the law.”
Taxpayer advocacy groups have begun lobbying Congress to reconsider the deep cuts, especially as the IRS is already under pressure to manage new IRS-funded credits from the Inflation Reduction Act and an increased focus on enforcement against high-income earners.
For now, taxpayers are being advised to file early, use online tools whenever possible, and avoid waiting until the last minute — not just this year, but likely for years to come.
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