The cuts are part of US President Donald Trump's sweeping downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump's biggest campaign donor.
Musk was on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, when Argentine President Javier Milei, known for wielding a chainsaw to illustrate his drastic policies slashing government spending, handed him one.
Labor unions have sued to try to stop the mass firings, under which tens of thousands of federal workers have been told they no longer have a job, but a federal judge in Washington on Thursday ruled that they can continue for now.
Christy Armstrong, IRS director of talent acquisition, teared up as she told employees on a phone call that about 6000 of their colleagues would be laid off and encouraged them to support each other, a worker who was on the call said.
"She was pretty emotional," the worker said.
The layoffs are expected to total 6700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers. Republicans have opposed the expansion, arguing that it would lead to harassment of ordinary Americans.
The tax agency now employs roughly 100,000 people, compared with 80,000 before Biden took office in 2021.
The IRS has taken a more careful approach to downsizing than other agencies, given that it is in the middle of the tax-filing season. The agency expects to process more than 140 million individual returns by the April 15 filing deadline and will retain several thousand workers deemed critical for that task, one source said.
The Trump administration's job layoffs have focused on workers across the government who are new to their positions and have fewer protections than longer-tenured employees.
