IRS employees who didn’t accept the Trump administration’s buyout offer earlier this year are being given one more chance to take the offer as more job cuts loom at the tax agency.
In an email IRS workers received from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Management on April 5, Treasury Department employees are being offered a “second and final” opportunity to take a buyout through the administration’s deferred resignation program, which is being dubbed “DRP 2.0.” Applications are being accepted beginning today through April 14, according to the email, which was posted on Reddit and confirmed by several users.
“This program will mirror the benefits of the first offering including paid administrative leave through September 30, 2025. Employees electing the program will offboard no later than September 30, 2025, unless they choose to offboard sooner,” the email says.
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DRP 2.0 is being offered to most permanent and term employees, including employees in their probationary or trial periods. Thousands of IRS probationary workers are scheduled to return to their jobs on April 14 after being fired in February as part of the Trump administration’s whittling of the federal workforce but later reinstated and put on paid administrative leave last month after two court rulings. However, the email says federal bureaus may choose to exclude certain mission-critical offices, functions, or individuals.
Treasury employees eligible for deferred resignation can start paid administrative leave as early as April 28, and “generally no later” than June 2, the email says.
Here’s the full text of the email:
Treasury is offering a second and final Deferred Resignation Program (DRP 2.0) with applications accepted between Monday April 7, 2025, through April 14, 2025. This program will mirror the benefits of the first offering including paid administrative leave through September 30, 2025. Employees electing the program will offboard no later than September 30, 2025, unless they choose to offboard sooner.
Treasury is offering DRP 2.0 to most permanent and term employees, including employees in their probationary or trial periods. However, bureaus may choose to exclude certain mission critical offices, functions, or individuals. For this reason, your application to participate in the DRP does not automatically entitle you to participate. You can expect to hear more from your bureau about which positions are not eligible for DRP 2.0 due to mission criticality.
Should you be deemed eligible to participate in DRP 2.0, you may be able to start administrative leave as early as April 28, 2025, and generally no later than June 2, 2025 (employees over 40 years of age maintain their right to 45 days to consider the terms of the DRP 2.0 agreement but could, at the employee’s sole discretion, sign the agreement at any time prior to the expiration of the 45 days. After signing and dating the agreement, the employees retain the right to revoke the agreement for 7 days).
Starting Monday, employees will be able to visit an online portal to accept DRP 2.0. Employees who are unable to access the portal can submit their application for DRP 2.0 via email or through their supervisor. As with the first DRP, DRP 2.0 will require signing an agreement. After electing DRP, your Human Resources Office will verify your eligibility and contact you to begin the offboarding process. If you have any questions on this program, please contact your servicing Human Resources Office.
Additionally, Treasury has obtained Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA). Employees who are at least age 50 with at least 20 years of creditable Federal service, or any age with at least 25 years of creditable Federal service, are eligible for VERA. Should you be eligible for VERA after September 30, 2025, but before December 31, 2025, you may select to retire, and your separation date will be the earliest date on which you are eligible to retire.
If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved and streamlined federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding which positions will remain – or where they will be located – after Treasury’s restructuring, but should your position be eliminated you will be afforded the protections in place for separations under such circumstances. If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits, regardless of your daily workload and you will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason).
Approximately 75,000 federal workers took the Trump administration’s first buyout offer in January, including approximately 4% to 5% of the IRS’s workforce.
The IRS began implementing a reduction in force on April 4 that will result in staffing cuts across multiple offices and job categories, with the agency’s Office of Civil Rights and Compliance getting the brunt of it on Friday.
According to an email sent to employees by the IRS human capital officer, 75% of the office will be reduced by the RIF. About 5% of the office’s employees had already left via taking the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer earlier this year and through attrition.
Published reports on Friday said the IRS plans to cut as many as 20,000 staffers—between 20% to 25% of the workforce—as part of the layoffs that began Friday. That is higher than an earlier estimate of 18% of the agency’s workforce being slashed.
Federal agencies had to submit plans for mass RIFs to the Trump administration by March 13.
“This is to further punish, humiliate, and frighten the employees of the Internal Revenue Service who have done nothing wrong except give their lives in service to the people of the United States of America,” Alex Jay Berman, executive vice president of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 71, which represents more than 3,600 IRS employees in Philadelphia, told the Philadelphia Inquirer regarding Friday’s RIF email.
Berman said he spent the weekend fielding questions from panicked IRS workers who received the RIF email: Are we definitely going to get RIF-ed? Are we going to lose our retirement? Are we going to be forced to take the deferred resignation? Aren’t they really just trying to close out the IRS?
News of the IRS job cuts come just before the April 15 deadline to file a federal income tax return or request an extension, and a recent report by the nonpartisan Budget Lab at Yale University found that slashing workers at an agency that collects nearly all federal revenue would mean less revenue. While cutting 18,200 IRS jobs would save $1.4 billion, the reduced staff would generate $8.3 billion less in tax revenue in 2026.
“We know everyone hates the IRS. We don’t like paying taxes,” Berman said, “but if you want an infrastructure to exist, if you want our armed forces to be supplied and paid, if you want our borders to be safe, … we have to be allowed to do the work for the American people.”
The layoffs are part of the administration’s plan to cut costs and pare down the federal workforce, including at the IRS, led by Trump advisor Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 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.
With Tribune News Service
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Michael a fisher April 9 2025 at 8:28 am
If I take this vera. After Sept 30 this year can I draw on 401k and earn retirement I will be 57 with 25.5 years in. I can't afford to be without pay from Sept 30 to age 60 with 20 years