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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) opposes a funding bill being considered by the House Appropriations Committee today that would cut the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) budget by $236 million in fiscal year (FY) 2017.

In a letter sent to committee members ahead of today’s markup, NTEU National President Tony Reardon said the IRS has been struggling to help taxpayers, fight identity theft and other types of fraud and collect more federal revenue, all because Congress has slashed the agency’s funding by a total of $900 million over the past six years.

Reardon noted that the House’s proposed funding level for the IRS for next year is $1.28 billion less than the administration’s request.

“IRS employees around the country continue to work diligently despite seeing their workloads increase and the resources to do their jobs shrink dramatically. The additional cuts proposed in the bill cannot be absorbed without further degrading IRS’ ability to provide critical taxpayer services and enforce the nation’s tax laws,” Reardon said in the letter sent Monday.

The NTEU leader said he is particularly worried about the impact that further cuts would have on the IRS’ ability to help taxpayers understand and comply with their tax obligations. In FY 2015 just 38 percent of taxpayers who called seeking assistance were able to get live assistance. After a modest funding increase, the IRS’ telephone service levels are expected to reach about 47 percent this year, but that’s still below par, according to the NTEU leader.

“The bill also proposes devastating cuts to the enforcement and operations support accounts … and result in billions in foregone revenue,” he wrote.

NTEU represents 150,000 federal employees at the IRS and 30 other agencies.