Shortly after a federal judge in California on March 13 ordered the employment of thousands of probationary employees in six government agencies who were fired by the Trump administration in February be reinstated, many impacted IRS workers received an email saying they got their jobs back. However, those staffers were also told they were being placed on paid administrative leave until further notice.
“Pursuant to the Order, you are being reinstated to your previous position immediately,” the email, which was posted by an IRS probationary employee on Reddit, states. “While you are being reinstated to federal service, you are also being placed on Administrative Leave. You should not report to duty or perform any work until receiving further guidance.”
The email cited a March 13 U.S. District Court ruling in Maryland, a separate court decision than the one in California, that “ordered 18 federal agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, to reinstate by Monday, March 17, 2025, certain probationary workers who were recently terminated.” The Trump administration has appealed both the California and Maryland court rulings.
According to information that was sent by the IRS Human Capital Office to agency managers, which was posted by someone on Reddit, “impacted employees will: be notified in writing of their immediate reinstatement, be reinstated and placed on administrative leave, with pay, and will remain in administrative leave until further notice, receive backpay from the date of the termination pursuant to the Backpay Act, subject to all necessary withholdings, deductions, and adjustments, be notified in writing prior to the end of administrative leave, and be provided benefits information.”
Another person posted this to Reddit with additional information:
From Separations Team:
“Thank you for contacting the Internal Revenue Service Separation Box.
Here is some general information about your reinstatement:
Your termination PAR will be removed from our system as if it had never happened. You will be issued backpay and all your benefits will be reinstated. This includes health, vision, dental, life, TSP, etc. that you may have been enrolled in prior to separation.
We expect back payments to be made the week of March 31st, which is our payday for Pay Period 05 (03/09/25-03/22/2025). Health/vision/dental carriers will be notified of the continuation in coverage during this pay week through the week of March 31st when they receive their premium payments, and there should not be a lapse in coverage. You may need to contact your insurance after March 31st to handle any out-of-pocket payment reimbursements.
The administrative leave you are being placed on is paid. Further instruction about returning to duty will come from management at a later time.
You will continue to accrue annual leave and sick leave. Your sick leave balance will be restored to the balance you had prior to separation unless a debt was established for negative sick leave. Negative sick leave debts that were billed will be worked on case-by-case basis. Please contact the Employee Resource Center for assistance with submitting an IRWorks ticket.
If you received a lump sum for annual leave payout from the IRS, you may request a debt be established to buy back your annual leave or you may keep the lump sum payment without buying back your annual leave balance. If you are requesting to buy back your annual leave restoration of leave, please contact the Employee Resource Center for assistance with submitting an IRWorks ticket.
If you were eligible for a recruitment incentive during the separation, you should remain eligible to receive the incentive. Please note that recruitment incentives state that the agency may choose to terminate the agreement at any time. Each business unit has a team working their recruitment incentives. We advise you reach out to your business unit’s team for more information, or to call the ERC and have a ticket submitted on their behalf as well.
If you were eligible for a Within Grade Increase or Career Ladder Promotion during the separation, your account will be automatically reviewed for any missing Within-Grade Increase and/or Career Ladder Promotion and issued retroactively, if applicable.
You are no longer eligible for unemployment wages. If you received unemployment wages, you will need to pay back those wages. Contact your state/local agency to discuss a potential repayment of unemployment payments received during the time you were separated.
Please log into your myEPP.gov account to confirm your Direct Deposit information is correct. Please also be sure to notify us if any of your contact information changes, either at separation@irs.gov or ERC phone 1-866-743-5748, Option 1.
Please also remember as IRS Employees, tax compliance is required. Please remember to file and pay any taxes due by the tax filing deadline of April 15, 2025.”
An estimated 6,700 IRS workers—mostly newer probationary employees who have fewer protections than long-term workers—were laid off by the Trump administration on Feb. 20. In addition, between 4% and 5% of IRS workers accepted the Trump administration’s federal employee buyout offer last month, Bloomberg Tax reported. But workers considered essential to tax season were told they have to stick around through the April 15 tax filing deadline until sometime in May.
On March 4, several media outlets reported that at the behest of the White House, the IRS was drafting plans to cut its staff by as much as 50% by the end of the year as the Trump administration continues its mission to shrink the size of the federal workforce. Federal agencies had to submit plans for mass reductions in force (RIFs) to the Trump administration by March 13.
According to the published reports, the IRS workforce will be slashed through a mix of layoffs, attrition, and incentivized buyouts.
However, more recent reports say 18% of the IRS’s workforce will be reduced by May 15, including some cuts that have already been made. The figures in the plan include earlier layoffs of probationary employees and people who accepted an earlier deferred resignation offer, Bloomberg Tax reported.
The Washington Post reported on March 18 that the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the independent taxpayer help branch within the IRS, is slated to lose 430 of about 1,900 employees in an initial phase of staff reductions. Those cuts would come in addition to more than 90 employees who took deferred resignation offers or were laid off earlier this year.
National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins told the Washington Post that the IRS is working with the Treasury Department “on the scope and allocation of workforce reductions.”
“To my knowledge, no final decisions have been made,” she said.
If the IRS proceeds with plans for a mass layoff after the April 15 tax filing deadline, there’re certain steps under the collective bargaining agreement that must be followed to mitigate the impact on employees, according to a letter National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald sent on March 14 to IRS leadership.
Failure to follow those contractual requirements would violate federal law, the letter states.
The NTEU said it strongly opposes any RIF because it “would be incredibly destructive not only for the many civil servants we proudly represent at the IRS, but also for the American public who depends on this agency to bring in revenue for vital government services,” Greenwald wrote.
The RIF requirements, as outlined in contracts between NTEU and the IRS for the last two decades, include the agency providing adequate notice to the union and an opportunity to bargain the RIF; offering mitigation strategies such as reskilling programs, outplacement services, transfers, early retirements, voluntary separation incentives, and others; and giving NTEU the data and analysis the agency relied on in determining a RIF is necessary. The contract also requires that no employee be involuntarily separated in the first 12 months after the union is formally notified of the RIF, giving employees and the union time to help as many employees as possible.
Notably, the RIF provisions were initially negotiated and added to the 2006 contract after the IRS insisted on a “comprehensive RIF article,” with the stated purpose of reducing the number of employees who are involuntary separated and allowing the agency to retain employees with valuable institutional knowledge of the IRS, the NTEU said. The relevant language remains in effect.
The number of IRS employees stood at roughly 100,000 before President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, as the tax agency refilled its ranks the last couple of years through funding from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
But billionaire Elon Musk, who has been heading up the Department of Government Efficiency, was tasked by President Trump to cut costs and pare down the federal workforce, including at the IRS. The administration is doing this by closing agencies, laying off nearly all probationary employees who haven’t yet gained civil service protection, and offering buyouts to almost all federal employees through the deferred resignation program.
All of this is happening during the home stretch of the 2025 tax season and while the IRS doesn’t have a current full-time commissioner. Billy Long, a Republican congressman from Missouri from 2011 until 2023, was nominated by President Trump to be the next IRS commissioner; however, the Senate has yet to schedule confirmation hearings for Long. Douglas O’Donnell had been serving as acting chief, following Danny Werfel’s resignation as commissioner on Jan. 20, but he retired on Feb. 28. IRS Chief Operating Officer Melanie Krause took over as the agency’s acting commissioner following O’Donnell’s retirement.
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Tags: Benefits, doge, doge irs, IRS, IRS layoffs, Payroll, Trump administration
