IRS Independent Office of Appeals Chief Liz Askey said earlier this week that more than 300 employees who work under her have taken the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program offer with another 100 requests outstanding, according to reports from Bloomberg Tax and Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting.
Between 4,500 and 5,000 IRS workers took the Trump administration’s first deferred resignation offer in January and have resigned, and another 20,000 or so agency employees requested to take the government’s second buyout offer last month, although some have had their requests denied because their role is “deemed critical.”
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Speaking at law firm Eversheds Sutherland’s 2025 Developments in Tax Administration, Controversy and Enforcement event on April 30, Askey said Appeals started the calendar year with about 1,777 employees. It now has about 77 probationary employees currently on administrative leave and no longer able to perform work, in addition to the hundreds who have taken the deferred resignation offer.
As of April 5, Appeals had 1,663 staffers, but that number doesn’t include those who took the buyout offer, Askey said, according to Bloomberg Tax.
Askey projects that at the end of the current fiscal year, Appeals with be at about 1,324 employees.
Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting wrote:
Askey explained that all Appeals staff were given the option of deferred resignation. To her, “the more employee-friendly approach” was to make the program available to anyone interested. And with 43% of Appeals staff either retirement-eligible or early retirement-eligible, she said it wasn’t “completely surprising” that a large number of employees took the opportunity to retire.
On top of the staff losses, Appeals is also subject to a hiring freeze. That currently applies for both external and internal hiring, said Askey. But she expects once the current reduction-in-force and “workforce reshaping efforts” are complete, that Appeals will — to the extent it is short-staffed — be able to hire from compliance.
Despite the staffing challenges, Askey said Appeals is making good progress toward reducing case cycle time frames, and the cycle time for non-docketed cases “is at the lowest level it has been in six years,” she said, according to Thomson Reuters
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The average fiscal year 2025 non-docketed case cycle time is at 274 days, Askey said, and she hopes to continue bringing down cycle times despite IRS workforce changes, Thomson Reuters reported.
Approximately 6,700 IRS workers—mostly newer probationary employees who have fewer protections than long-term workers—were laid off by the Trump administration on Feb. 20. However, impacted workers were later reinstated and put on paid administrative leave last month after two favorable court rulings. They were set to return to work on April 14, but that plan was put on hold by the IRS.
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The tax agency has also started a reduction to its workforce, which will include mass layoffs in two phases. The IRS workforce, which sat at approximately 100,000 when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, could be reduced to as little as 60,000 to 70,000 employees by year end, an internal memo stated—an estimate that includes workers who took both deferred resignation program offers.
The layoffs, which are also happening at other federal agencies, are part of the Trump administration’s plan to cut wasteful spending and downsize the federal government.
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