*

Cuts are part of drastic effort to downsize government

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Cuts focus on those hired during Biden administration

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Probationary workers needed for processing tax returns

will stay

(Updates with IRS firing workers)

By Nathan Layne

Feb 20 (Reuters) -

An executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told

staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired,

a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that

would eliminate roughly 6% of the agency's workforce in the

midst of the critical tax-filing season.

The cuts are part of President Donald Trump's radical

downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest

workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other

government employees. The effort is being led by tech

billionaire Elon Musk, Trump's biggest campaign donor.

The layoffs at the IRS largely target workers at the agency

who were hired as part of an expansion under former Democratic

President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement

efforts on wealthy taxpayers. The agency now employs roughly

100,000 people, up from 80,000 when he took office.

Independent budget analysts estimate the expansion could

boost government revenues and help narrow trillion-dollar budget

deficits. Trump's Republicans say the expansion would lead to

more harassment of ordinary American taxpayers.

The workers being cut are in their probationary period and

enjoy fewer protections than career employees.

The IRS has taken a more careful approach to downsizing than

other agencies given that it is in the middle of its busiest

period, with the April 15 tax filing deadline just two months

away.

The 2025 tax filing season opened on January 27, with the

IRS expecting over 140 million individual tax year 2024 returns

by the federal filing deadline.

The dismissals target revenue agents, customer-service

workers, specialized auditors and IT specialists across all 50

states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., according to people

familiar with the matter.

The IRS will retain several thousand probationary employees

deemed critical for processing tax returns, including those

involved in supporting and advocating for taxpayers, one source

said.

The White House has not said how many of the nation's 2.3

million civil-service workers it wants to fire and has given no

numbers on the mass layoffs. Roughly 75,000 took a buyout offer

last week.

The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal

workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal

to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that

regulate big business and collect taxes -- including those that

oversee Musk's companies SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink.

Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team has also

cancelled contracts worth about $8.5 billion involving foreign

aid, diversity training and other initiatives opposed by Trump.

Both men have set a goal of cutting at least $1 trillion from

the $6.7 trillion federal budget, though Trump has said he will

not touch popular benefit programs that make up roughly

one-third of that total.

Democratic critics say Trump is exceeding his constitutional

authority and hacking away at popular and critical government

programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.