Taxpayers who encounter problems with their returns may experience longer wait times to resolve matters owing to a shortage of Internal Revenue Service employees.
So says the nation’s National Taxpayer Advocate in a report submitted to Congress. The IRS is currently “confronting a reduction of 27% of its workforce, leadership turnover, and the implementation of extensive and complex tax law changes,” asserted Erin Collins in her report.
While Collins maintained that most taxpayers should have no issues submitting their returns and receiving refunds, “the success of the filing season will be defined by how well the IRS is able to assist the millions of taxpayers who experience problems.”
A reduction in IRS staff throughout the last year has seen the number of people working for the agency drop from 102,000 employers to the currently roughly 74,000. These reductions came about as the result of either layoffs or firings implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The impact of the staff departures, said Collins, “is not merely numeric. Many departing employees were experienced workers whose institutional knowledge and technical expertise cannot easily be replaced.”
Even as those changes occurred, the IRS was able to process just over 165 million individual tax returns in 2025. Out of that total figure, 104 million taxpayers received refunds of varying amounts. Some 94% of returns were submitted electronically.
Collins’ report also noted that about 3.6 million taxpayers “received their refunds beyond the IRS’ normal processing time, with an average wait time of seven weeks for e-filers, and 14 weeks for paper filers.”
The National Taxpayer Advocate’s office is an independent office set up within the larger Internal Revenue Service. The office was created by Congress in July of 1996.
February 3, 2026
By Garry Boulard
