The Claim

Reversed the massive over-expansion of the IRS that took place during the Biden Administration.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two things: (1) that the Biden administration “massively over-expanded” the IRS, and (2) that the Trump administration “reversed” this expansion. The word “over-expansion” implies the IRS grew beyond what was needed or appropriate — that the Biden-era investment was excessive.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That the IRS was being weaponized against ordinary Americans. That 87,000 new agents were coming to audit the middle class. That the Biden administration was building a bloated surveillance state at the IRS. That reducing the IRS workforce serves taxpayers. The word “massive” suggests an agency that ballooned irresponsibly, and “reversed” implies restoring a prior, better state. The overall framing invites the reader to celebrate the gutting of federal tax enforcement as a victory for regular people.

What is conspicuously absent?

Eight critical facts: (1) The IRS workforce in 2022, when the Inflation Reduction Act passed, was at its lowest level since the 1970s — approximately 79,000 employees, down 22% from its 2010 peak. The “expansion” was a partial recovery from a 50-year staffing low, not an overreach. (2) The IRA funding was designed to reverse a decade-long enforcement collapse: audit rates for millionaires had fallen 71% between 2010 and 2019, and for the first time in history, the IRS was auditing low-income EITC recipients at higher rates than millionaires. (3) The CBO estimated the IRS investment would generate $200 billion in net revenue over a decade — a return of roughly $2.50 for every dollar spent, with enforcement ROI reaching $5-$12 per dollar for audits of the wealthy. (4) In its first two years, the Biden IRA investment collected $1.1 billion from 1,600 wealthy Americans with unpaid taxes (up from $38 million the prior year), phone wait times fell from 28 minutes to 3 minutes, and the telephone level of service improved from 15% to 87%. (5) The Yale Budget Lab estimated that IRS workforce cuts could cost $350 billion in net forgone revenue over a decade, and up to $2.4 trillion if reduced enforcement encourages broader noncompliance. (6) The administration’s own FY2026 budget requested 11,000 new IRS customer service hires after the cuts caused projected service levels to plummet from 85% to 16% — a tacit admission the cuts went too far. (7) The annual tax gap — taxes owed but uncollected — is $606 billion, with the top 1% of earners responsible for an estimated 30% of unpaid taxes. (8) This claim substantially overlaps with items 219 (DOGE savings), 230 (downsizing the bureaucracy), 262 (federal employment decline), and 282 (hiring freeze).

Padding Analysis: Repackaging of DOGE Workforce Cuts

Item 258 describes one specific component of the broader federal workforce reductions already covered in items 219 (DOGE savings claims), 230 (downsizing the bureaucracy), and 262 (federal employment decline). The IRS cuts were carried out through the same mechanisms — DOGE-driven terminations, deferred resignation programs, and hiring freezes — described in those items. While IRS-specific details warrant analysis, the framing as a standalone “win” contributes to the pattern of counting the same action multiple ways: cutting IRS staff appears here as “reversing over-expansion,” in item 230 as “downsizing the bureaucracy,” in item 219 as part of “$215 billion in savings,” and in item 262 as contributing to a “dramatic decline in federal employment.”

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The IRS workforce was at its lowest level in nearly 50 years when the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. IRS employment had fallen from 94,346 in 2010 to approximately 79,000 in 2021-2022 — a 22% decline driven by more than a decade of budget cuts and a seven-year hiring freeze. Enforcement staffing fell 31% over that period. The CBO and the National Taxpayer Advocate documented these declines as a crisis, not a baseline to be defended. The IRA’s investment was designed to rebuild the agency from a documented staffing emergency. ¹

The Inflation Reduction Act allocated $80 billion over 10 years, of which 57% ($45.6 billion) was for enforcement, 32% ($25.4 billion) for operations support, 6% ($4.8 billion) for systems modernization, and 4% ($3.2 billion) for taxpayer services. The Treasury Department committed that new enforcement hiring would focus exclusively on taxpayers earning over $400,000 — not the middle class. The IRS planned to hire approximately 30,000 employees over FY2023-2024, primarily to replace retirees and address critical staffing gaps. By January 2025, the IRS workforce had grown to approximately 102,000, reaching the level the agency identified as “right-sized” for its mission. ²

Before the IRA investment was reversed, it was already producing measurable results. In the 2024 filing season, the IRS achieved an 88% telephone level of service (up from 15% in 2022), with average wait times of 3 minutes (down from 28 minutes). The IRS collected $1.1 billion from 1,600 wealthy Americans with unpaid taxes in FY2024, up from $38 million the prior year — a 2,800% increase. Total audit revenue reached nearly $100 billion, an increase of $25 billion over pre-funding levels. The agency spent only 34 cents per $100 collected. ³

The Trump administration reduced the IRS workforce by approximately 25,000-28,000 employees in 2025, bringing it to roughly 74,000-75,000 — below the pre-IRA staffing crisis level. TIGTA reported that 3,623 revenue agents (31% of all auditors) left in just the first three months of 2025 through a combination of DOGE-driven probationary employee terminations and the deferred resignation program. Treasury planned to cut up to 50% of IRS enforcement staff and 20% of other components. By the end of 2025, the IRS workforce was smaller than it was before the IRA was enacted. ⁴

The CBO estimated that every dollar spent on IRS enforcement generates approximately $5 to $12 in revenue, with an average ROI of $6.40 across enforcement activities. For audits of the wealthiest taxpayers (top 0.1%), returns are estimated at $26 per dollar spent. The CBO projected that the original $80 billion IRA investment would generate approximately $200 billion in additional revenue over a decade ($120 billion net of costs). The IRS itself estimated the investment would generate $561 billion under updated accounting methodology. ⁵

The Yale Budget Lab estimated that a 50% IRS workforce reduction would cost $350 billion in net forgone revenue over 10 years, with potential losses reaching $2.4 trillion if noncompliance increases. Even at the actual reduction level (approximately 25-28%), the Budget Lab projected $8.5 billion in lost revenue in 2026 alone. The Center for American Progress estimated the workforce cuts would reduce revenue by $198-323 billion over a decade. Multiple nonpartisan analyses converged on the conclusion that cutting IRS enforcement costs the Treasury far more than it saves. ⁶

The gross tax gap — taxes legally owed but not voluntarily paid — was $696 billion in tax year 2022, with a net tax gap of $606 billion after enforcement and late payments. The tax gap has nearly doubled from $345 billion in TY2001, outpacing inflation. The top 1% of earners account for an estimated 30% of unpaid taxes. Reducing audit capacity disproportionately benefits those who exploit the complexity of the tax code, since auditing wealthy individuals requires “teams of experienced personnel trained in combing through complicated business arrangements, sophisticated tax shelters, and tax returns that can run hundreds of pages.” ⁷

Congress had already clawed back $41.3 billion of the IRA’s $45.6 billion in enforcement funding before the Trump administration’s workforce cuts began. The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 rescinded $1.4 billion; subsequent bipartisan appropriations deals rescinded another $20.2 billion in FY2024; and further continuing resolutions brought total rescissions to approximately $41.3 billion — 92% of the enforcement account. By mid-2025, only approximately $300 million remained, and only $3.5 billion of the original enforcement allocation had been spent on its intended purpose. ⁸

The administration’s own FY2026 budget contradicted its claim by requesting 11,000 new IRS customer service hires. The Trump administration warned Congress that without a 31% funding increase for IRS Taxpayer Services and 11,000 new hires (a near-50% staffing increase for the division), telephone service levels would collapse from 85% to just 16% in the 2026 filing season. The IRS Taxpayer Services division had lost 8,600 employees — 20% of its workforce — through the very cuts this claim celebrates. House Republicans rejected the request, keeping funding flat at $2.8 billion. ⁹

Strong Inferences

The characterization of the IRA investment as “over-expansion” requires ignoring the documented staffing crisis that preceded it. When an agency has lost 22% of its workforce over a decade, has fallen to 1970s staffing levels, has seen audit rates for millionaires collapse by 71%, and is auditing poor Americans at higher rates than the wealthy for the first time in history, rebuilding it is not “over-expansion” — it is institutional recovery. Calling it “over-expansion” is like calling a hospital “over-expanded” for hiring nurses after a staffing shortage caused patient deaths. The claim works only if the audience does not know what the IRS looked like before the IRA. ¹⁰

The primary beneficiaries of reduced IRS enforcement are high-income individuals and corporations, not middle-class taxpayers. Middle-class audit rates were already historically low (approximately 0.3%) and were explicitly protected under the IRA’s enforcement directives. The wealthy taxpayers who face the most complex audits — those with partnerships, S-corporations, and multi-layered holding structures — are the ones who benefit most when enforcement agents are eliminated, because those audits require the specialized expertise that was specifically targeted in the cuts. Former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen characterized reduced audits on sophisticated taxpayers as “a tax cut for tax cheats.” ¹¹

The 2026 tax filing season is already showing the consequences of these cuts. TIGTA reported that paper tax returns waiting to be processed rose from 52,293 in December 2024 to 294,052 in December 2025 — a 462% increase. Over 2 million returns remain in inventory, more than 1 million above pre-pandemic levels. The IRS hired just 50 employees for return processing (2% of the authorized level). Thirty-five Taxpayer Assistance Centers are closed. IRS CEO Frank Bisignano claimed the agency now has “perfect staffing” but acknowledged he had conducted no empirical assessment to support that claim. ¹²

What the Evidence Shows

The claim that the Biden administration “massively over-expanded” the IRS reverses the actual sequence of events. The IRS in 2022 was in a staffing crisis — at its lowest headcount since the 1970s, with enforcement capabilities that had collapsed over a decade of budget cuts. Audit rates for millionaires had fallen 71%. The IRS was, for the first time in its history, more likely to audit a low-income EITC recipient than a millionaire. The Inflation Reduction Act’s investment was a response to this documented emergency, not an unprompted expansion. Calling it “over-expansion” is like calling physical therapy after a broken leg “over-exercise.”

The results of the IRA investment, before it was reversed, were measurable and significant. Phone wait times fell from 28 minutes to 3 minutes. The telephone level of service jumped from 15% to 87%. The IRS collected $1.1 billion from wealthy tax delinquents in a single year, up from $38 million. Total audit revenue increased by $25 billion. Every dollar spent on enforcement returned multiple dollars in revenue — $5 to $12 on average, and up to $26 for audits of the top 0.1%. The CBO projected the investment would generate $120-200 billion in net revenue over a decade.

The “reversal” the claim celebrates destroyed these gains. The IRS lost approximately 25,000-28,000 employees, including 31% of its auditors in the first three months alone. The agency is now smaller than it was before the IRA — back at crisis-level staffing. The Yale Budget Lab projects $350 billion in net forgone revenue over a decade from these cuts, potentially rising to $2.4 trillion if reduced enforcement encourages broader noncompliance. The administration itself requested 11,000 new IRS customer service hires in its FY2026 budget after the cuts caused projected service levels to collapse from 85% to 16% — an implicit admission that the “reversal” went too far.

The question of who benefits is revealing. The annual tax gap is $606 billion, and the top 1% accounts for 30% of it. Auditing the wealthy requires specialized expertise in complex financial structures — exactly the expertise eliminated in these cuts. Middle-class taxpayers, whose audit rates were already at historical lows and were protected under the IRA, gain nothing from reduced enforcement. The beneficiaries are the wealthy individuals and corporations who exploit the complexity of the tax code, and who now face dramatically less scrutiny.

The Bottom Line

Steel-man first: It is legitimate to debate the appropriate size of the IRS, and the “87,000 agents” framing (though misleading — the number was total hires over a decade, mostly replacing retirees) generated real public concern. Congress had bipartisan reservations about the IRS expansion, as shown by the $41.3 billion in IRA enforcement funding clawed back before the Trump administration even took office. Some of the cuts may have improved efficiency, and the IRS bureaucracy is not above criticism.

But the claim that the Biden administration “massively over-expanded” the IRS is false. The IRA investment brought the IRS from a documented 50-year staffing low back to functional capacity — and produced measurable results in enforcement revenue, taxpayer services, and audit rates on the wealthy. The “reversal” this claim celebrates took the IRS below its pre-IRA crisis staffing, eliminated 31% of its auditors, collapsed projected service levels from 85% to 16%, and is estimated by the CBO and Yale Budget Lab to cost the Treasury between $120 billion and $2.4 trillion in lost revenue over a decade. The administration’s own budget request for 11,000 new IRS hires confirms the cuts went too far.

This is not “making government work for the people.” It is making government unable to collect taxes owed by the wealthiest people, at a cost to every taxpayer who does pay what they owe. Every dollar of tax evasion that goes uncollected because the IRS lacks the staff to pursue it is a dollar that honest taxpayers — including middle-class families — must make up through higher taxes, reduced services, or increased national debt. The claim inverts reality: the “over-expansion” was a partial fix for a crisis, and the “reversal” recreated the crisis.

Footnotes

1. CBO, “Trends in the Internal Revenue Service’s Funding and Enforcement,” July 2020. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56467. CBPP, “The Need to Rebuild the Depleted IRS.” https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-need-to-rebuild-the-depleted-irs. IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, “2022 Annual Report to Congress: Most Serious Problems.” https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/reports/2022-annual-report-to-congress/most-serious-problems/ ↩

2. Tax Policy Center, “How did the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 affect the IRS’s budget?” https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-did-inflation-reduction-act-2022-affect-irss-budget. Federal News Network, “IRS workforce surpasses 100,000 employees, but faces ‘war of attrition’ retaining staff,” January 2025. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/hiring-retention/2025/01/irs-workforce-surpasses-100000-employees-but-faces-war-of-attrition-retaining-staff/ ↩

3. U.S. Treasury, “Filing Season 2024 Report Card: IRS Builds On 2023 Progress, Delivers World Class Customer Service Thanks to Inflation Reduction Act,” April 22, 2024. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2250. Clemson News, “New IRS funding boosted tax enforcement and improved taxpayer services during the Biden administration,” January 2025. https://news.clemson.edu/new-irs-funding-boosted-tax-enforcement-and-improved-taxpayer-services-during-the-biden-administration/ ↩

4. TIGTA, cited in The Tax Adviser, “Revenue agents who conduct audits lead IRS job losses,” May 2025. https://www.thetaxadviser.com/news/2025/may/revenue-agents-who-conduct-audits-lead-irs-job-losses/. Federal News Network, “Treasury plans to cut up to 50% of IRS enforcement staff, 20% of other components,” April 2025. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reorganization/2025/04/treasury-plans-to-cut-up-to-50-of-irs-enforcement-staff-20-of-other-components/. Government Executive, “After shedding 25,000 employees, IRS chief says his agency now has perfect staffing level,” March 2026. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2026/03/after-shedding-25000-employees-irs-chief-says-his-agency-now-has-perfect-staffing-level/411890/ ↩

5. CBO, “The Effects of Increased Funding for the IRS,” September 2021. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444. CBO, “How Changes in Funding for the IRS Affect Revenues,” February 2024. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60037. Government Executive, “IRS says its hiring surge and funding boost could generate $560B more than it thought,” February 2024. https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/02/irs-says-its-hiring-surge-and-funding-boost-could-generate-560b-more-it-thought/393966/ ↩

6. Yale Budget Lab, “The Revenue and Distributional Effects of IRS Funding.” https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/revenue-and-distributional-effects-irs-funding. Center for American Progress, “The Fiscal Impact of IRS Staffing Cuts.” https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-fiscal-impact-of-irs-staffing-cuts/ ↩

7. IRS, “The Tax Gap.” https://www.irs.gov/statistics/irs-the-tax-gap. CRFB, “Primer: Understanding the Tax Gap,” March 2025. https://www.crfb.org/blogs/primer-understanding-tax-gap. ProPublica, “How DOGE’s Cuts to the IRS Threaten to Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save,” February 2025. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-doge-irs-cuts-will-cost-more-than-savings-trump-musk-deficit ↩

8. ITEP, “IRS Enforcement Boost Was Supposed to Last 10 Years. Congress Killed It in Under Three,” 2025. https://itep.org/irs-funding-cuts-inflation-reduction-act-tax-avoidance/. Grant Thornton, “IRS loses $20.2 billion in funding,” March 2024. https://www.grantthornton.com/insights/newsletters/tax/2024/hot-topics/mar-26/irs-loses-billion-in-funding. Tax Policy Center, “What the Debt Ceiling Agreement Means for the IRS,” June 2023. https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/what-debt-ceiling-agreement-means-irs ↩

9. Government Executive, “Trump wants to reverse the staffing cuts he’s overseen for IRS customer service. House Republicans disagree,” July 2025. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/07/trump-wants-reverse-staffing-cuts-hes-overseen-irs-customer-service-house-republicans-disagree/407002/ ↩

10. CBO, “Trends in the Internal Revenue Service’s Funding and Enforcement,” July 2020. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56467. ITEP, “IRS Enforcement Boost Was Supposed to Last 10 Years. Congress Killed It in Under Three.” https://itep.org/irs-funding-cuts-inflation-reduction-act-tax-avoidance/ ↩

11. ProPublica, “How DOGE’s Cuts to the IRS Threaten to Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save.” https://www.propublica.org/article/how-doge-irs-cuts-will-cost-more-than-savings-trump-musk-deficit. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, “Whitehouse, Wyden, and Colleagues Raise Questions About Trump IRS Workforce Cuts Letting Wealthy Tax Cheats Off the Hook.” https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-wyden-and-colleagues-raise-questions-about-trump-irs-workforce-cuts-letting-wealthy-tax-cheats-off-the-hook/ ↩

12. Government Executive, “After shedding 25,000 employees, IRS chief says his agency now has perfect staffing level,” March 2026. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2026/03/after-shedding-25000-employees-irs-chief-says-his-agency-now-has-perfect-staffing-level/411890/. Government Executive, “Watchdog warns of challenges as IRS handles first tax season after Trump staffing cuts,” March 2026. https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2026/03/watchdog-warns-challenges-irs-handles-first-tax-season-after-trump-staffing-cuts/412158/. FedManager, “Staffing Shortfalls May Strain IRS Service in 2026, Reports Warn.” https://www.fedmanager.com/news/staffing-shortfalls-may-strain-irs-service-in-2026-reports-warn ↩