The Internal Revenue Service consistently falls short of its longstanding 14% goal of hiring veterans, with annual hiring typically ranging from 7% to 11%, according to a new report.
The
In response to the report, an IRS official said about 14 veterans had been "reallocated" and that the 14% goal was merely "aspirational" and "not a mandated target." Still, that was only a fraction of the number of employees who departed and later returned to the IRS to fill its ranks during a demanding tax season. Another recent TIGTA
In the new report, TIGTA found that 74% of IRS functions met or exceeded the 14% veteran hiring goal during fiscal years 2020 through 2024. But several functions — mainly those with entry-level, lower-paying, and seasonal positions — had substantially lower veteran hiring rates. Because these functions account for a significant share of IRS hiring, they lowered the agency's overall veteran hiring percentage.
Officials with the IRS's Human Capital Office blamed several factors for missing veteran hiring goals, including applicants' qualifications, the hiring authority used and incomplete identification of veterans in hiring data. Applicants may either self-identify as veterans or be hired under a veterans hiring authority. Veterans who do neither are not reflected as veterans in the data, resulting in an undercount. Still, there are good reasons why the IRS should hire more veterans.
"The IRS's success serving taxpayers hinges on its ability to recruit, hire, and train skilled employees to carry out its mission," said the report. "Veterans' strong motivation for public service, as well as skills and experiences acquired during their military service, make them strong candidates to fulfill federal agencies' staffing needs."
In the IRS's FY 2024 Strategic Recruitment Plan, IRS officials acknowledged they had not met the Treasury Department's veteran hiring goal and described ongoing efforts to improve performance, including tracking and analyzing veteran hiring and workforce data and producing annual hiring summaries and trend analyses by IRS function.
During TIGTA's review in May 2025, the Office of Personnel Management issued a memorandum outlining a Merit Hiring Plan to simplify federal hiring and refocus recruitment to technical skills-based criteria. The plan stressed three areas for the recruitment strategy, including veterans; early career; and science, technology, engineering and math. OPM will spearhead a governmentwide veteran recruiting road map that will define target occupations with agency leadership and partner with agency veterans' program leaders to find opportunities to match the talents of veterans with in-demand skills at agencies. However, TIGTA pointed out that the impact of this effort is currently unknown given the limits on federal government hiring.
In January 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum freezing the hiring of federal civilian employees. The memorandum instructed the director of the Office of Management and Budget to submit a plan within 90 calendar days to reduce the size of the federal government's workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition. Once the plan was issued, the hiring freeze would expire, except for the IRS. The hiring freeze would remain in effect for the IRS until Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent determined it was in the national interest to lift the freeze.
In June 2025, National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins urged the Trump administration to lift the hiring freeze so the IRS could hire essential filing season employees to meet its customer service needs for the 2026 filing season. The IRS requested and received an exception to the hiring freeze for these positions. In August 2025, the IRS announced openings for these seasonal positions and began to hold hiring events around the country. In addition, the Treasury Department announced the establishment of the Treasury Common Services Center, which would realign and centralize human resources processing and other operational services across the Treasury Department into a unified service delivery model. TIGTA said the impact of this effort on the IRS's Human Capital Office is currently unknown.
TIGTA recommended that the IRS's human capital officer should coordinate with the Treasury Department's chief human capital officer to reassess the IRS's veteran hiring goal, but the IRS disagreed with the recommendation, saying the 14% goal was aspirational and not a mandated target. TIGTA acknowledged that IRS management is committed to strengthening veteran recruitment, engagement and retention across the agency, but believes that tracking and reporting on such efforts should continue and would help the IRS ensure it's meeting the objectives and reporting requirements of OPM's Merit Hiring Plan.
"At the IRS, we proudly reaffirm our unwavering commitment to veterans," wrote IRS chief human capital officer Alex Kweskin in response to the report. "We deeply value the skill, leadership, discipline and service that veterans bring to our workforce. Their dedication to our nation strengthens both our organization and our mission to serve the American people. We are proud of our veteran, active reservists and military spouses, whose dedication to America inspires our team."
