Staffing Cuts Slow IRS FOIA Processing
By Lauren Loricchio, Tax Notes, June 25, 2025
The Trump administration’s workforce reorganization efforts are slowing down Freedom of Information Act processing at the IRS, which could lead to bigger backlogs.
Because so many employees participated in the deferred resignation program, “we have lost many of our experienced [FOIA functional coordinators] and new people are being trained to take over. This is causing a delay in processing the backlog of FOIA requests,” an employee in the IRS Disclosure Office told Tax Notes via email.
FOIA functional coordinators are the employees in each IRS business unit who search for records that are responsive to FOIA requests.
Records obtained by Tax Notes through a FOIA request show that the IRS also fired probationary employees in the office that administers its privacy and records policy and initiatives and ensures compliance with FOIA.
The records show that at least 25 employees in the IRS Office of Privacy, Governmental Liaison, and Disclosure (PGLD) accepted a deferred resignation program offer from the Office of Personnel Management. There were 665 employees in PGLD as of March 14.
According to the records, five government information specialists in PGLD were among more than 7,000 IRS employees fired in February after President Trump took office.
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