Despite Trump’s order to to call 26,000 unpaid IRS workers back to
work (still without pay, of course), at least 14,000 of them did not
show up at the office as of Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
Two House aides, speaking anonymously, say that 9,000 IRS employees
“could not be reached” and 5,000 more “claimed a hardship exemption.”
This, in the same week that La Guardia airport shuttered its doors
and other airports are experiencing major delays is just the beginning
of the destruction Trump’s shutdown is taking on Americans and the
United States.
“The shutdown appears to be affecting the IRS. In the call centers, which answer taxpayer questions over the phone, about 35 percent of calls are being answered, IRS officials told congressional staff, according to one of the aides. The initial plan for filing season was for 80 percent of calls to be answered. The average call time, of 7 to 10 minutes last filing season, has jumped to 25 to 40 minutes.
The IRS is also losing 25 IT staffers every week since the shutdown began, with many finding other jobs, one House aide said, citing the IRS officials’ briefing.
IRS employees have said they cannot afford to get to work or pay for child care as they struggle to go more than 30 days without pay.
Shannon Ellis, President of the National Treasury Employees Union in Kansas City sums it up when she tells The Washington Post: “People are panicking. It’s scary. It’s getting worse every day.”
The IRS is shut down, along with much of the rest of the federal
government, but unattended servers running on autopilot are sensing that
no progress has been made on taxpayers’ attempts to clarify disputed
and overdue bills, and so they are initiating asset seizure proceedings.
Even if this turn of events is sufficient to terrorize you into paying a
disputed bill, there’s no one at the IRS to accept your payment – and
of course, if you maintain that the bill isn’t correct, there’s no one
to discuss it with.
