Nearly 40,000 IRS employees remain on the job, including 3,500 new customer service representatives who began training on Sept. 22. While walk-in Taxpayer Assistance Centers are closed, the IRS customer service telephone lines are still open, although taxpayers and practitioners are reporting difficulty in getting through to an IRS representative.
IRS will not respond to correspondence during the shutdown.
The union that represents IRS employees warns taxpayers to “expect increased wait times, backlogs and delays implementing tax law changes as the shutdown continues.”
MORE INFORMATION:
The IRS has more than 74,000 employees.
All IRS employees continued working during the first five days of the government shutdown.
The furloughs took effect on day 6 of the shutdown.
The employees who were furloughed were given just four hours to close out their work assignments and vacate their offices.
The IRS has formulated a 162-page contingency plan that governs its operations during the shutdown.
Under that plan, most IRS operations are closed due to the lapse in funding. However, most of the 39,870 IRS employees still working occupy jobs dealing with the public.
Following the furloughs, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants sent a letter to Treasury Secretary and Acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent recommending that the IRS implement “fair, reasonable and practical relief measures to mitigate the negative impact of the shutdown on taxpayers and their practitioners.”
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