IRS aims to fill 5,000 jobs in 30 days, deploy “surge” team to clear backlog of 24 million tax returns
The IRS briefly sent employees home in March 2020, the peak of tax-filing season, creating a cliff of returns and correspondence from which it still has not recovered. The consequences have been severe for taxpayers who rely on tax credits or refunds for basic living expenses, and underscored weaknesses in the agency’s staffing and 60 year-old IT infrastructure.
The IRS has secured permission from federal workforce officials to expedite the hiring process, eliminating some selection requirements. The “direct hiring” authority, approved by the Office of Personnel Management this month, will allow managers to extend offers to candidates on the spot at job fairs in Kansas City, Mo., on March 18 and 19, Austin on March 24 and 25, and Ogden, Utah, on March 31 and April 1.
But the IRS may struggle to attract qualified candidates, experts say. The agency has lost nearly 20,000 employees since 2010 and staffing has long been one of its most pressing obstacles. The division responsible for opening paper returns and manually transcribing them into computer files lost about 20 percent of its staff last year to retirements and departures, two agency officials familiar with the situation said.
Provisions in the spending bill, which could pass the Senate and head for President Biden’s signature as soon as Thursday evening, also allow the IRS to bypass some hiring steps to bring aboard more senior staff to handle the underlying causes of the backlog.
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