AICPA wants all IRS employees working during government shutdown

The American Institute of CPAs is asking the Internal Revenue Service for a contingency plan that would keep 100% of IRS employees on the job in case of a government shutdown in the midst of tax season.

The IRS kicked off the 2026 tax-filing season Monday with the threat of another government shutdown looming. The IRS needed to limit its services during last fall's 43-day shutdown and furlough employees who hadn't already departed amid a wave of layoffs of resignations earlier in the year that led to a 27% reduction in the IRS workforce. The IRS's workforce now stands at about 74,000, according to a report Wednesday by National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins, and the AICPA is asking the IRS to keep them all working in the event of a government shutdown.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats blocked legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security amid ongoing protests in Minneapolis and other parts of the country over the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the killings in recent weeks of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti. However, they may eventually reach a deal with Senate Republicans and President Trump to pass the appropriations bills to keep the IRS and the Treasury Department from shutting down before the Friday night deadline.

In its letter Thursday to the IRS, the AICPA pointed to the severe impact a failure to keep the IRS running at full capacity would have on the 2026 filing season.

"The consequences of furloughing IRS employees, reducing taxpayer and practitioner services, and introducing the prospect for prolonged or widespread technology disruptions could prove to be detrimental to the success of the filing season currently underway and the effective and timely implementation of recent legislative changes," wrote AICPA Tax Executive Committee chair Cheri Freeh in the letter, addressed to IRS acting commissioner and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano.

The letter pointed out that the IRS has only been forced to shut down once before during the April filing season at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. That shutdown caused significant harm to taxpayers, required extraordinary tax relief measures, and led to heightened IRS inventory levels that continue to this day. The AICPA cited a report released this week by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration on the IRS's tax season readiness, which said, "…taxpayers and practitioners may experience significant harm and overwhelming challenges if the IRS operates during the current filing season with a fraction of its workforce."

The IRS has never before experienced a lapse in appropriations during the April tax filing season, according to the AICPA. The letter noted that even the 2019 government shutdown — which ended immediately before the tax filing season began — placed significant strain on the entire tax system, including the inability to resolve automated IRS collection notices, unreliable online account access, disruptions to electronic tax payment services, difficulties processing critical tax documents, and backlogged IRS phone lines once the shutdown ceased."We are deeply concerned that taxpayers and practitioners may experience significant harm and overwhelming challenges if the IRS operates during the current filing season with a fraction of its workforce," Freeh wrote. "The IRS has only been forced to shutdown once before during an April filing season at the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic." 

The AICPA expressed its angst about the prospect of another government shutdown on tax administration. 

"The negative impacts experienced during prior government shutdowns could be exponentially more detrimental to our tax system if experienced during the current filing season, thus causing substantial harm to taxpayers and resulting in backlogs that the IRS has not experienced since the pandemic," Freeh wrote. "The processing of tax returns and collection of tax revenue is a critical government function that should continue regardless of a government shutdown, especially in the midst of an April filing season. To successfully accomplish this goal, the IRS must function at full capacity during the shutdown to ensure that the 2026 filing season operates as efficiently as possible."

After last fall's government shutdown, the National Treasury Employees Union complained in November that many IRS employees were left waiting for back pay when they had to work unpaid during the shutdown, and IRS officials agreed to speed up the payments.