By Jonathan Shorman
The Kansas City Star
(TNS)
Feb. 18—Internal Revenue Service employees in Kansas City are bracing for upwards of 1,000 layoffs this week, a mass termination that would rock a major employer in the metro.
National Treasury Employees Union, or NTEU, Chapter 66 president Shannon Ellis told The Star on Tuesday that the union had been informed by IRS leadership that probationary employees would be let go, though the agency hadn’t confirmed exact numbers.
Ellis said the IRS had already gathered lists of 1st and 2nd-year probationary employees. She estimated that laying off those workers would affect roughly 1,000 people at a minimum on the Kansas City campus located near Union Station.
Calls to an IRS media line weren’t answered. At one point, the line appeared busy.
The anticipated layoffs come as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, initiative led by the billionaire Elon Musk has made its way through a variety of federal agencies, including the IRS. Since President Donald Trump took office last month, thousands of federal workers in numerous departments have been fired or laid off.
“What people really don’t understand is that we take an oath to complete the mission to the taxpayers, to the American people,” Ellis said, adding that revenue collected through taxes fund dozens of programs. She raised the possibility that layoffs could slow the processing of federal tax returns this spring.
The IRS’s Kansas City campus employs more than 4,000 workers, including many who help process returns. The Associated Press, citing unnamed sources, has reported that the agency was expected to lay off thousands of probationary employees nationwide.
Megan Strickland, a spokesperson for Mayor Quinton Lucas, said the mayor hadn’t received any official information regarding the possible layoffs, but would advocate with the city’s federal delegation to protect positions of affected employees.
“One of Missouri’s great Republican leaders, Kit Bond, helped bring thousands of federal jobs to Kansas City at the IRS. Our local IRS workers deliver vital services to the American people. Our workers are good American mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers,” Strickland said in a statement.
NTEU Chapter 66 on Tuesday was advising all employees to print out key documents, including recent pay stubs and annual appraisals. Layoffs elsewhere in the federal government have taken place with immediate effect, leaving workers little time to gather records.
The union was preparing for the layoffs to occur Wednesday, but Ellis cautioned that winter weather could delay the action by a day if the campus was closed. She said the union is also planning a rally on March 15 at noon near the campus.
In a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday afternoon, Ellis said “they’ve beefed up security” on campus in anticipation of collecting badges and walking employees off the premises.
“This is unacceptable and I am furious that this is happening on our campus and we are in the middle of tax season,” Ellis said. “So yes, we know that the public will be impacted.”
Photo caption: Aerial view of the IRS building in Kansas City, MO. (Ryan Wewers/iStock)
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©2025 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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Tags: doge, Elon Musk, IRS, Kansas City, layoffs, Payroll, Trump administration
