The IRS is touting its performance during this year\u2019s filing season as evidence that it can still carry out its tax duties, despite losing more than a quarter of its workforce under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The agency received more than 134 million individual tax returns and issued more than 80 million refunds.<\/p>\n
About 98% of returns and refunds were received electronically. More than 90% of taxpayers who filed their return electronically received their refund in 21 days or less. The average tax refund was $3,400, an 11% increase compared to the prior year.<\/p>\n
IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano told the Senate Finance Committee<\/a> on Wednesday that the agency can have both \u201cless people and better results.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the best stats we ever had in terms of performance,\u201d Bisignano told the committee.<\/p>\n Bisignano said that \u201cthis is the most successful filing season in IRS history,\u201d despite losing 27% of its workforce last year and falling short of hiring goals for the filing season.<\/p>\n To address these workforce gaps, the IRS put about 1,500 IT and human resources employees<\/a> on \u201cinvoluntary\u201d 120-day details to support frontline filing season work.<\/p>\n IRS employees assigned to these details said the work they were being asked to do was at a much lower grade than what they were normally paid to do at the agency, and that they had no background in handling these tasks.<\/p>\n Bisignano said the IRS is modernizing its technology to serve taxpayers with fewer employees.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, when you change staffing models, you also change how you do your work, and you\u2019re going to have to do it through technology and innovation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bisignano said the agency \u201ctransformed taxpayer experience\u201d by resolving more taxpayer inquiries online instead of over the phone. He said the IRS saw a 60% increase in website visits this filing season and that more taxpayers were able to get help online, which led to a year-over-year decrease in phone calls.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at a White House press briefing that \u201cwe have done more with less at the IRS.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have moved over millions of taxpayers to digital tax accounts, and that leaves us able to service more taxpayers in person and on the phone,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n Last December, the IRS permanently moved more than 1,000 employees out of its IT division.\u00a0<\/a>Many, but not all, of these reassigned employees have been put on temporary details to work in taxpayer services, but none have been told what work they\u2019ll do for the agency in the long term.<\/p>\n The IRS\u2019 chief information officer recently said at an industry conference<\/a> that the agency\u2019s tech shop lost about 40% of its workforce and 80% of its leadership last year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to always ensure that we have the right number of staff to get every job done,\u201d Bisignano told the committee.<\/p>\n The IRS encountered some hiccups during the filing season. The agency told some of its employees<\/a> two weeks before the filing season deadline that their overtime wages were miscalculated on their tax forms and that they would have to file an amended tax return.<\/p>\n Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee warned that about 1.5 million taxpayers waited<\/a> around 10 weeks to receive their tax refund from the IRS. These taxpayers typically receive their refund as a paper check, but the IRS phased these out as part of an executive order requiring agencies to move to electronic payments.<\/p>\n The IRS faced a bigger-than-usual workload preparing for this year\u2019s season<\/a> because of major changes to the tax code under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress passed last summer.<\/p>\n Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said that, \u201cwhile no filing season is perfect, the 2026 filing season has proceeded smoothly for tens of millions of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Democrats on the committee, however, were critical of deep IRS staffing cuts and their impact on tax enforcement and the ability for taxpayers to get help from the agency.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is little doubt the numbers will show IRS customer service has gotten worse as a result of DOGE and Trump layoffs,\u201d Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.<\/p>\n Democrats on the committee also criticized Bisignano for splitting his time and attention across two major agencies. He is also the Senate-confirmed commissioner of the Social Security Administration.<\/p>\n Bisignano told senators that \u201cI really look at it like I run two large organizations,\u201d and that he\u2019s sometimes putting in 14-hour workdays managing both agencies.<\/p>\n While most of the IRS staffing reductions occurred before Bisignano joined the IRS last fall,\u00a0<\/a>the IRS is pursuing further cuts to enforcement personnel in its fiscal 2027 budget request.<\/p>\n Despite the staffing cuts, Bisignano told the committee that IRS enforcement revenue is up 12% compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to have the type of revenue we have coming in from enforcement, if you\u2019re not collecting from highly compensated people and bad actors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s mass exodus of IRS staff came from employees taking voluntary separation incentives or retiring.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody\u2019s been fired. Everybody retired voluntarily,\u201d Bisignano told the committee. \u201cNobody\u2019s going to really like hearing this, but it was good, because they wanted to retire, that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n The IRS threatened layoffs on several occasions. The IRS walked back reductions in force<\/a> that targeted its civil rights office.<\/p>\n After telling IRS staff that layoffs were off the table, the Treasury Department sent RIF notices to about 1,400 employees<\/a> during the 43-day government shutdown last fall. Most of the employees who received RIF notices worked in IT and human resources at the IRS.<\/p>\n A federal court in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration<\/a> from carrying out those layoffs, and Congress passed a stopgap spending bill that put governmentwide layoffs on hold for three months.<\/a><\/p>\n Even though those layoff protections have expired, Treasury rescinded those RIF notices and has yet to revisit them.<\/p>\n Bisignano said his goal is\u00a0\u201ccreating a digital IRS,\u201d and that modernization efforts will allow the IRS to \u201cmeet taxpayers where they want to be met.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead of this year\u2019s filing season,\u00a0Bisignano announced <\/a>that the IRS would replace the level-of-service phone metric it\u2019s been using for more than 20 years with a measurement that \u201cwill allow us to more accurately capture how the IRS serves taxpayers today.\u201d<\/p>\n He told the committee that when taxpayers get through to an IRS employee, the average wait time is nine minutes.<\/p>\n The IRS also lowered its level of service target for phone calls from 85% to 70%. The National Taxpayer Advocate said that the IRS\u00a0 \u201csubstantially overstaffed\u201d its call centers in prior years when it set a higher metric, and that employees spent up to a third of their work hours\u00a0<\/a>\u201csimply waiting for the phone to ring.\u201d<\/p>\n In his written testimony, Bisignano said the IRS cut \u201cidle time\u201d in its call centers by nearly 50%.<\/p>\n