Get Ready For Delayed Tax Refunds, Long Hold Times After Mass IRS Firings

WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration moves forward with reportedly by the Senate Finance Committee. All told, U.S. tax evasion by millionaires and billionaires tops $150 billion every year, the IRS chief said last year.

The Texas-based IRS employee said her team members, all of whom were just fired, work exclusively on tax compliance for the ultra-wealthy.

“We audit tax returns of people who die and have estates valued at over $14 million. We’re not auditing everyday, middle-class Americans,” she said. “We’re going after high-dollar people who are not compliant with tax responsibilities.”

“I’ve sworn an oath to the Constitution,” she added. “In my time at the IRS, I have not met a single person who is not passionate about serving the American people. That is number one on our minds every day when we come in.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats fumed about the corruption on display with Trump’s attacks on the IRS.

“Purging thousands of IRS workers in the middle of tax filing season is another act of plain corruption designed to benefit Musk, Trump, and their wealthy friends,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represents a Virginia district with large numbers of federal employees, said in a statement.

“These firings are likely illegal, and make the federal government less responsive to the American people,” said Beyer. “This is stupid, destructive, and corrupt.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, led Democrats in a letter sent Tuesday to top administration officials urging them not to follow through with mass firings at the IRS, warning of their “catastrophic impact on the filing season and the ability of Americans to quickly get tax refunds and assistance” when filing taxes this year.

“It is nearly inevitable that this hiring freeze, compounded by layoffs and further reductions in staff mandated as a result of Elon Musk’s unprecedented power grab, will delay refunds and degrade taxpayer service,” reads their letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, among others. “Millions of Americans plan their budgets around timely refunds every filing season. These reckless decisions on the part of Elon Musk and the Trump administration will likely cause serious financial hardship for people across the country.”

Wyden said Thursday it shouldn’t be surprising that Trump and Musk, the billionaire and Trump loyalist overseeing the administration’s mass governmental cuts, want to gut the tax enforcement agency.

“Donald Trump is a known tax cheat, and he and Elon Musk clearly believe they are above the law, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise their IRS layoffs will hobble tax enforcement among the ultra-wealthy,” he said in a statement.

The Oregon senator added that he is “extremely concerned” that one of Trump’s reasons for slashing employees at the IRS is so Republicans can shut down the IRS’s Direct File program, which offers people a free and secure way to file their taxes online. The Biden administration launched the program last year. Before it existed, most people had to pay to use other services to file their taxes.

Getting rid of the Direct File program would “put American taxpayers back at the mercy of the tax software giants who’ve been ripping them off for too long,” said Wyden. Beyond that, he said he is bracing for Trump and Republicans in Congress to make even more cuts to the IRS in the coming weeks and months that will hurt taxpayers.

“When that happens,” he said, “Americans can blame Trump, Musk, and Republicans for every additional day their refunds are delayed and every additional minute they spend waiting on hold with the IRS.”