Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C. —The union representing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees today called on the IRS Oversight Board to help prevent drastic cuts in resources for this vital agency.

In a statement to the public-private board, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) warned that proposed reductions in IRS resources actually would have a negative impact on the federal deficit, allowing it to deepen not only by cutting agency enforcement efforts but by restricting its ability to provide the customer service taxpayers often need to voluntarily meet their tax obligations.

The Oversight Board is charged with making recommendations in a variety of key areas for the IRS, including budgeting, long-term and strategic planning, and more. NTEU presented a statement at today’s Oversight Board meeting.

Despite the critical role assigned to the IRS, the agency’s ability to continue performing its mission in the coming years is being severely challenged due to the lack of adequate funding in fiscal 2011, and proposed reductions in fiscal 2012, the union said. The IRS collects about 93 percent of all government revenue.

“Drastic reductions in funding contemplated in House and Senate appropriations bills would result in the loss of as many as 4,000 positions at the IRS,” the union said, noting that the job losses would come at a time when overall staffing is far below that of the mid-1990s.

For example, NTEU said, in 1995, the IRS had a staff of 114,018 to administer the tax laws and process 208 million tax returns; by contrast, the agency today has a staff of just 94,346, yet must process approximately 236 million much more complicated tax returns.

NTEU noted in its statement that the Oversight Board “fully recognizes the strain that the growing workload and lack of sufficient resources is having on the IRS,” emphasizing that the board’s fiscal 2012 budget recommendations pointed to the agency’s “unique role” in maintaining the nation’s economic health, and that the additional responsibilities it has been given in recent years “require that its resource needs be afforded budget priority.”

The union has been making the case to Congress, the administration and other interested parties, in addition to the Oversight Board, that cutting funding for the IRS, as proposed for 2012, will increase, not decrease, the deficit.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments