The workforce within the American tax collection service declined by 25% last year, leading to a decrease in controls. This is prompting some taxpayers to take some tax liberties.
More than 200,000 employees pushed out and around 200 billion dollars in savings against 1,000 species… The American Government Efficiency Department (Doge) may have been buried sooner than expected with a rather contrasting balance sheet, but its actions continue to disrupt the smooth operation of the administration in the United States.
Particularly affected by the job cuts imposed by this department, once led by Elon Musk, the IRS is bearing the brunt of this purge at a time when the income tax filing campaign is in full swing across the Atlantic.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, thousands of tax officials have been laid off or encouraged to resign since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Others have been reassigned to immigration law enforcement services. As a result, the IRS workforce has decreased from 103,000 to 77,000 in 2025, a 25% drop, according to the agency’s report. And it is likely not over yet, as the next American budget foresees a total workforce of 69,000 agents at the IRS in 2027. The lowest level since 2018.
Fewer Controls
While the Trump administration emphasizes combating social fraud, the budget dedicated to tax checks has also been cut. Adjusted for inflation, the expenses allocated to tax checks have returned to their level twenty years ago, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
As a consequence of these drastic cuts in staffing and the IRS budget, tax checks on taxpayers with incomes of at least $10 million a year decreased by 9% in 2025 and are expected to drop by 39% this year.
The Justice Department’s tax division has also not been spared, with 80 prosecutors assigned to the service being let go in recent months. As a result, federal prosecutions for tax fraud have also decreased by 27% in a year, Reuters reports.
“The taxman won’t catch me”
Fewer tax checks naturally mean fewer revenues from collections. The fact is clear: never since 2012 has the IRS collected so little revenue from checks. Not surprising for Charles Rettig, appointed by Trump at the head of the IRS during his first term. Already at that time, he believed that the IRS staff was insufficient to effectively audit the wealthiest taxpayers, with some resorting to illegal strategies to avoid taxation.
Tax lawyers claim that the weakening of the IRS has encouraged more taxpayers to take liberties with their tax obligations as the income tax filing deadline was set for April 15. With the decrease in staffing and checks, a new mentality summed up as ‘The taxman won’t catch me’ seems to be developing, according to Carolyn Schenck, a former national advisor on fraud within the American tax administration.
They are aware that the IRS lacks the means to do “what it used to do with drastically reduced resources,” she said. Retired tax agent David Carrone confirms that the lack of staff leads agents to rush through files under pressure. If you don’t even check these declarations, a taxpayer can say, ‘Give it a try, add a zero here, invent an expense…’ explains the union member representing IRS employees.
Considerable Revenue Losses
However, some attorneys point out that checks have not disappeared and can occur in the three years following the tax filing deadline. The IRS acknowledges that checks are fewer but are now more thorough. Additionally, the service now has artificial intelligence tools to track down fraudsters.
But for now, technology struggles to compensate for the lack of human resources. Charles Rettig estimates today that there is nearly a $1 trillion gap between the taxes owed and the taxes actually paid by American taxpayers. Not a negligible amount considering that the US public deficit is soaring and its debt reaches $39 trillion.
The IRS itself claims that checks and prosecutions of fraudsters bring in more than they cost the federal government. “Reducing spending related to tax oversight leads to missed opportunities and revenues for the United States,” the service wrote in its report. According to an estimate from Yale’s Budget Lab, cuts in IRS staffing could save $46 billion in federal spending over the next decade. However, during the same period, $643 billion in tax revenues could be missing.
