IRS Watchdog Finds Agency Fired Thousands of Employees Without Following Policies 305

 in IRS News  tagged IRS by (updated 68 days ago)

The IRS terminated thousands of probationary employees early this year without following its own performance review policies, a Treasury watchdog found in a report released on August 19.

In February, the Treasury Department directed the IRS to send termination notices to probationary employees who had worked for the agency for less than one or two years. The letters stated that the workers were being fired for “performance reasons or current mission needs.”

Termination Notices Issued Without Performance Reviews

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report revealed that out of over 16,000 probationary employees, the IRS issued termination letters to 7,315. The agency exempted employees deemed essential for the tax filing season, those with appeal rights, law enforcement personnel, or military spouses.

According to TIGTA, 3,716 of the terminated employees had no performance rating on record. Of the remaining 3,599 employees, 3,556 had a “Fully Successful” rating or higher.

The IRS’s own policies require that it provide probationary employees with a 30-day notice and consider their performance before terminating them. The report noted that several IRS officials refused to sign the notices, citing concerns that the employees did not have documented performance issues. Despite these warnings, the IRS’s Human Capital Office sent the letters anyway.

The short 29-day timeframe between identifying employees for termination and notifying them “may have contributed to the issues identified during our review,” TIGTA said.

Union Challenges “Arbitrary and Unlawful” Firings

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Doreen Greenwald stated that the TIGTA report confirms what the union has maintained all along: “The IRS’ claim that thousands of probationary employees were fired this year based on their job performance was flat-out false.”

Greenwald said the NTEU is challenging the “arbitrary and unlawful” mass firings, noting the damage they have caused to “nonpartisan federal employees and the valuable work they were hired to do.”

In a February White House press briefing, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett supported the firings, suggesting they were performance-related. He said, “I’ve never seen a person who was laid off for poor performance say that they were performing poorly.”

TIGTA also found that the IRS failed to correctly identify all mission-critical services and employees when it selected which probationary workers would be exempt from termination. The majority of the terminated employees, along with newly promoted or transferred employees, had not been with the agency or in their new position long enough to receive a performance review.

In July, the Supreme Court stayed a federal court’s prohibition on agencies implementing large-scale reductions in force (RIF) or reorganization plans. At the time of the report’s publication, TIGTA said it was unclear if any of the reinstated probationary employees would remain in their jobs or be terminated in a future RIF.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

305 thoughts on “IRS Watchdog Finds Agency Fired Thousands of Employees Without Following Policies”