The IRS continues to suffer from the effects of multiple prior hiring freezes and of a reduced budget over the past decade which has left the IRS unable to hire to the level needed to fully support all IRS operations. In fiscal year (FY) 2019, the IRS had 73,554 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, which is a decrease of 22 percent from 94,711 FTE positions in FY 2010. Adding to this compounding issue of a reduced work force is the fact that between employees who are eligible to retire, and the average number of employees who leave each year for work elsewhere, the IRS could potentially lose about a third of its current workforce within the year. These are skilled, experienced employees who will take with them years or decades of experience. Even with technological advancements allowing the replacement of manual tasks, the IRS faces an inability to backfill behind these employees as it cannot keep pace with attrition.
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