Trump has said that "[the Biden administration] tried to hire 88,000 IRS agents, and we are in the process of ... terminating all of them or maybe move them to the border"

Unusual Whales

26 Jan 2025 • 3 min read

Trump Orders Federal Hiring Freeze, Return to In-Person Work, Impacting IRS and Other Agencies

President Donald Trump signed multiple executive orders on his first day in office, including two major actions affecting federal employees: a hiring freeze and a mandate for employees to return to in-person work. Both policies are expected to have significant and immediate consequences, particularly for the IRS workforce.

Mandatory Return to Office

Trump’s executive order requires federal employees to return to full-time, in-person work “as soon as practicable.” The federal government, with over two million civilian employees, is the nation’s largest employer.

A 2024 report from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) found that:

54% of federal employees were already working in-person full-time.
50% of federal jobs were not eligible for remote work, including positions in veteran healthcare, food inspection, and natural resource management.
Employees eligible for telework still spent about 60% of their hours onsite at agency offices.
228,000 employees (about 10%) worked fully remotely.

(The OPM report is no longer available on the White House website but can be accessed through the Federal Depository Library Program Electronic Collection Archive.)

IRS Among Most Impacted Agencies

The Department of the Treasury employs 109,268 people, with the IRS making up 82,990 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in fiscal year 2023.
Nearly 90,000 Treasury employees are eligible for remote work.
In 2023, former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel testified that about 50% of IRS employees worked remotely at any given time.

Congressman David Kustoff (R-Tenn.) raised concerns about the impact of remote work on taxpayer service and data security, questioning whether this policy was hurting public access to IRS services.

Federal agencies have pushed back, pointing to private sector trends, where remote work has not harmed productivity or data protection. They warn that eliminating flexible work policies could hurt federal agencies’ ability to compete for talent.

Unused Office Space & Budget Concerns

The Treasury Department occupies 31.5 million square feet of office space, with 20% directly controlled by the agency and the rest managed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).
Before Trump's return-to-office order, the Treasury had planned to relinquish over 800,000 square feet of office space by 2027.

Critics argue that forcing federal employees back into offices could lead to mass resignations. That’s precisely the goal, according to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were appointed by Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

In a November 2024 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that a forced return to office would trigger voluntary resignations, calling it a “welcome” outcome.

(Ramaswamy has since announced plans to leave DOGE to run for office.)

Federal Hiring Freeze

Trump also signed an executive order freezing hiring for most federal agencies. The order states:

“No Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law.”

The hiring freeze exempts positions related to military, immigration enforcement, national security, and public safety.

While the freeze is temporary for most agencies, there is one major exception: the IRS. Under the executive order:

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with OPM and DOGE, must submit a plan within 90 days to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
Once this plan is submitted, the freeze will expire for most agencies—but not for the IRS.
The IRS hiring freeze will remain in effect indefinitely, until the Treasury Secretary, OMB, and DOGE determine it is in the national interest to lift it.

IRS Hiring Plans Put on Hold

The IRS had been aggressively hiring under funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to boost enforcement and improve taxpayer services.

In late 2023, the IRS hired 560 new accountants to pursue high-wealth individuals, large corporations, and complex partnerships that fail to pay taxes owed.
At a December 2023 hiring event in Houston, the IRS hired 160 accountants in just two days—a process that typically takes months.

Impact on Taxpayer Services

Former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel previously warned that years of staffing shortages had led to longer wait times and worse taxpayer service.

However, the IRS reported major improvements in 2024, with:

16% more taxpayer calls answered than in 2023.
Three million more calls handled compared to 2022.
Faster response times—average wait times dropped from 27 minutes in 2022 to just over 3 minutes in 2024.

With the hiring freeze in place, many fear these gains could be reversed, affecting taxpayer support and enforcement efforts.