Numbers from the IRS's 2015 Data Book shows the agency appears to be doing more with less but is it actually?

IRS full-time equivalent staffing has fallen 15 percent since 2010, with the total number of individual tax return examinations dropping 22 percent during the same period.

Related:Read the report

In 2010, the IRS said it had 94,711 average full-time equivalent positions, but by 2015, it was down to 79,890, with strong cutbacks starting in 2012.

Since 2011, the IRS has lost an average of 3,704 positions a year and its operating costs have fallen by $963 million, but in the same span, gross collections have increased by $88.7 trillion. From fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2015, the agency saw its largest drops in its Examinations and Collections division.

A June report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said that continued cuts to the agency had degraded customer service, citing examples of a 25 percent drop in taxpayers calls answered by IRS Automated Collection Service workers.

National Treasury Employees Union president Tony Reardon said, in a statement, that the agency desperately needs more funding to carry out its mission.

"Without an infusion of funding, the health of the IRS will continue to decline," he said. "The ongoing deterioration of the IRS workforce prevents the IRS from offering the level of service taxpayers deserve, from aggressively curbing tax fraud and from effectively enforcing tax laws authored by Congress."

Reardon added that the White House's proposed 2017 budget would provide an extra $1 billion above the current IRS funding levels, which would help bolster services, but that it still needs more resources to handle continued challenges in its mission.

"Our country depends on an efficient and effective tax collection system to fund our national defense, education and all of the other services our citizens expect from their government," he said. "That cannot be accomplished with far fewer employees than there were 20 years ago."

Share:
In Other News
Load More