Tax season trouble: IRS watchdog warns of delays, missed calls
The 2026 tax season is kicking off, and a watchdog warns that taxpayers face new challenges due to Trump's steep cuts
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Building is seen on February 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
A watchdog for the Internal Revenue Service warned of slower help for taxpayers in the upcoming filing season due to steep cuts at the agency under the Trump administration.
The public memo by Diana Tengesdal, an official at the office responsible for IRS oversight, detailed several challenges the bureau faces as this year's filing season gets underway. It kicked off on Monday, spanning ten weeks into April 15.
Related Content
The memo said overall IRS staffing fell 19% as of Oct. 2025, the same level prior to the enactment of a 2022 Democratic law that significantly boosted funding for more personnel at the agency. Republicans have steadily chipped away at IRS funding in bipartisan deals over the years.
The Trump administration then targeted the agency for budget cuts through the Department of Government Efficiency, which carried out a cost-cutting spree that ended with many IRS employees fired or resigning.
Many of the bureau's lost workers were involved in processing original and amended tax returns, resolving tax return errors, assisting taxpayers on the telephone and in-person, preventing fraud, and updating IRS systems, the office of the Inspector General for Tax Administration said. The process to hire and onboard new staff suffered delays due to last year's government shutdown.
The agency is now slashing its goals for answered IRS phone calls from taxpayers to 70%, a decrease from 85%, the memo said.
Even as the IRS weathers significant budget and personnel cuts, it has been tasked by the Trump administration to implement a bevy of new tax cuts; such cuts include eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay in some circumstances. The bureau has cycled through six IRS commissioners, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent servers as its commissioner in an acting capacity.
President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are leaning on the IRS to deliver bigger tax benefits for Americans ahead of the 2026 midterms. However, the agency must overcome the major cuts that Republicans enacted in the first place to do so.