“That’s a huge mistake,” said Mark Everson, a former IRS commissioner under President George W. Bush. “The administration needs to work with the Congress and vice versa.”
Even without a shutdown, the filing season was going to be a heavy lift for the agency as it rushes to make all the changes to forms and systems stemming from President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul.
The agency has been doing the final preparations for the filing season with a skeletal staff. In recent days, the agency has called back more workers and plans to have about 57 percent of employees on the job while the shutdown continues into the filing season, the most critical time period for the IRS.
Workers Stay Home
“They were already stressed and the system was at its limits,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who’s a member of the Ways and Means panel.
Doggett said he’s spoken with IRS workers living in his district who are staying home because they can’t afford to get to work. “This really does great harm to the implementation of the new tax law, collection of refunds and the maintaining of the system,” he said.
The agency is continuing to work on preparation for the filing season, calling furloughed employees back to work and assessing the situation, Matthew Leas, an IRS spokesman said in a statement.
The Treasury Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.