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Washington, D.C.—Another important member of the House Appropriations Committee has called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to delay cuts in the number of its estate and gift tax attorneys until and unless the agency can provide a detailed plan on how the agency will increase its detection of possible tax cheating among taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million.

“I am greatly concerned that this sudden and substantial personnel reduction” among estate and gift tax attorneys “will cripple the ability of the IRS to detect tax cheating among the wealthiest estates,” Rep. John Olver (D-Mass.) wrote to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson. Rep. Olver is Ranking Member of the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Judiciary and District of Columbia Appropriations Subcommittee.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), who has been leading the fight against the IRS planned cutbacks in its estate and gift tax workforce, welcomed the Olver letter, noting that the Massachusetts congressman has joined a number of his colleagues in voicing concern over the plan.

“As does NTEU, members of Congress have very serious concerns about the wisdom of reducing a workforce that generates so much revenue for the Treasury,” President Kelley said. Rep. Olver noted in his letter that while the estates of only 0.5 percent of taxpayers who die owe any estate tax, the measure brings in more than $25 billion annually to the Treasury.

The Massachusetts Democrat quoted a senior IRS official as saying in a late July media report that the funding currently used to support the estate and gift tax audit positions, and support staff, would instead be used to increase efforts at detecting cheating on income tax returns filed by millionaire taxpayers.

“While I appreciate increasing efforts to detect tax cheating by millionaires,” he wrote, “I question why it should come at the expense of enforcement efforts in the areas of estate and gift taxes.” He added: “The personnel departures will cause the IRS to lose valuable and seasoned expertise in these areas (and) I question the need to proceed with these reductions with such haste.”

The IRS has said it wants to remove half of the estate and gift tax attorneys along with support employees from its rolls by the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year. President Kelley has been sharply critical not just of the plan, but of the proposed timetable. She said “it is unfair in the extreme to ask these employees to make potential life-changing decisions regarding their jobs in such a short time frame.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments, including 94,000 in the IRS.