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Federal News Radio
Past IRS
commissioners to Congress: Enough with the budget cuts
By Jory Heckman
November 24, 2015
The former heads of the Internal Revenue Service have written to
Congress, telling them that after five straight years of budget cuts,
enough is enough.
In a letter to the House and Senate appropriations committees, seven of
the IRS’ past commissioners urged Congress for more funding in the
upcoming fiscal 2016 budget, claiming the agency has been set up to
fail with an increased workload and fewer resources.
“None of us ever experience, nor are we aware of, any IRS
appropriations reductions of this magnitude over such a prolonged
period of time,” the commissioners wrote in the letter.
Over the past five years, Congress has cut $1.2 billion from the IRS’
budget, an overall loss of 17 percent.
Larry Gibbs, an IRS commissioner under the Ronald Reagan
administration, told Federal Drive with Tom Temin the agency has
already hit rock-bottom and cannot keep cutting staff to match
shrinking budgets.
“What we tried to do in the letter is explain why we’re approaching the
Congress, and also what the ramifications will be if there are further
budget cuts. And if there is not an increase in the IRS budget, the
ramifications are the American public is going to suffer,” Gibbs said.
The IRS’ workforce problem is twofold: It has 15,000 fewer full-time
employees than it did five years ago, and it isn’t attracting younger
talent.
More than 50 percent of IRS’ workers are over the age of 50, and 24
percent is eligible to retire. In three years, 38 percent of the
workforce will reach retirement age.
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“What that means is you’re losing your most knowledgeable and
experienced personnel at the Internal Revenue Service,” Gibbs said.
By comparison, only 3,400 of its 85,0000 workers are under the age of
30, and 384 employees are under the age of 25. Budget constraints have
led the IRS to impose a hiring freeze since 2010, and intermittently
since 2005...
Read the rest of the article at Federal News Radio
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