IRS Offers Early Retirement Buyouts

The Internal Revenue Service has begun offering a $25,000 buyout program to encourage up to 400 of its employees to accept retirement or early retirement by March.

The buyout program was offered to IRS employees on Thursday, according to Federal News Radio. It comes after another buyout offer that went out to IRS employees last November, in which they were also promised $25,000 for retiring.

The buyout program, however, comes on the heels of a report from National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson to Congress on the increasing workload expected from IRS employees as lawmakers threaten budget cuts (see Taxpayer Advocate Sees Threat from Increased IRS Automation and Workloads).

Olson noted how the IRS’s workload has grown significantly in recent years while its funding is being cut. The increasing complexity of the Tax Code, frequent changes in tax laws, and demands for the IRS to help oversee programs such as the health care reform law have placed strains on the Service, which has approximately 100,000 employees.