Mass layoffs are being planned for two more vital federal US government agencies as the IRS and Veteran Affairs have emerged as the latest targets of the Trump administration’s unprecedented purge through billionaire Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), new reports suggest.
The IRS is drafting plans to slash its 90,000-strong workforce by up to half through a mix of layoffs, attrition and buyouts, according to the Associated Press. The federal tax collector has offices across the country, with women accounting for 65% of the workforce, while people of color represent 56%.
A reduction in force of tens of thousands of employees would render the IRS “dysfunctional”, John Koskinen, a former IRS commissioner, told the AP.
About 7,000 probationary employees with 12 months or less of service were already laid off in February. In addition to the extraordinary planned cuts, the Trump administration reportedly intends to lend IRS workers to the Department of Homeland Security to assist with the crackdown on immigrants.
Meanwhile, the Veterans Affairs (VA) department is planning lay off as many as 83,000 workers by the end of 2025, according to an internal memo obtained by the Government Executive, a news outlet covering the executive branch.
The leaked memo sent to senior staff on Tuesday said the VA would work with Musk’s Doge to slash its workforce to 2019 levels – which is before millions of veterans became newly eligible for care. The cuts will be sweeping and spare no part of the department, wrote the VA chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, in the memo.
More than one in four VA employees are veterans.
Staffing at the VA rose substantially under the Biden administration in response to the 2022 Pact Act, which expanded health care and benefits to millions of veterans exposed to toxins from burn pits, Agent Orange and other toxic substances. The legislation was passed after years of campaigning by veterans and their families who struggled to receive care and support for injuries and illnesses linked to their military service.
The planned cuts were an “outright betrayal of veterans”, Representative Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House veterans affairs committee, told Government Executive.
The latest layoffs are part of the Trump/Musk administration’s plan to gut federal agencies that provide crucial, sometimes life-saving services to millions of people in the US and overseas. USAid has been largely shuttered, leaving staff and their families stranded across the world and millions of people without food, medicine and clean water. The mass firings and buyouts are unprecedented and legally dubious, and in some cases are being challenged in court.
The federal workforce, excluding military personnel and postal workers, comprises about 2.4 million people, of whom only 20% are in Washington DC and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia.
