Press Releases

Yesterday, Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kansas) published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, IRS Agents Shouldn’t Work From Home, criticizing the work from home policy of the IRS given their inability to provide adequate customer service to Kansans and taxpayers across the country. This follows a Ways and Means Committee hearing during which IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel answered to Rep. Estes that 50% of IRS employees were still working from home.  
  
Highlights of the op-ed are below and you can read the full op-ed here. IRS Agents Shouldn't Work From Home
Since the pandemic, my constituents have reported far more service complaints.
 
During the pandemic, businesses relied on telework to continue operations. Now that the pandemic is over, businesses should be making data-driven decisions about remote work, and so should the federal government … the largest employer in the U.S. with nearly three million employees. In a Feb. 15 House Ways and Means Committee hearing, I asked Daniel Werfel, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, if all IRS employees had fully returned to the office after referencing a Government Accountability Office report that found most federal agencies are using 25% or less of building capacity at their headquarters. “Everyone’s working,” he said. “It’s 50% on-site versus 50% working in some remote location.” He said this is in line with a governmentwide standard of 50% on-site work.
 
I asked because my office staff in Wichita, Kan., regularly assist constituents who are experiencing delayed responses and challenges when working with federal agencies. My office opened more than three times as many IRS-related cases in 2023 as in 2019, suggesting IRS staff were more effective at their jobs before the pandemic. …
 
It appears that our hearing struck a nerve with the IRS. News outlets including the Federal News Network reported that on the day of the hearing, Mr. Werfel emailed Washington-based IRS employees that they would need to return to the office for half of their workdays in any given month starting May 5: “Ultimately, to ensure ongoing alignment with the 50% on-site mandate for teleworkers, we need to take the necessary steps to increase our trend toward more on-site work.”
 
Based on complaints my office has received, however, 50% may not be sufficient.
 
Taxpayers are stuck with delayed resolutions when the agency isn’t as effective. The time a taxpayer spends on the phone, chasing paperwork or dealing with technical glitches takes away from productivity. …
  
… Unlike a business with competition and the incentive to improve, it will likely continue to put higher priority on employees’ comfort than on providing Americans with good, timely service. That means it is up to Congress to hold the agency accountable.