IRS to Boost Staff Size for First Time in Six Years

The Internal Revenue Service, which collects more than $1.8 trillion in taxes each year, plans to begin expanding its staff for the first time in six years thanks to a budget breakthrough, Commissioner Charles Rossotti said.

In a memo to employees sent Friday and obtained by Reuters on Sunday, Rossotti said Congress funded the personnel growth in an $8.7 billion IRS budget approved last week, up $643 million from fiscal 2000, which ended Sept. 30.

The spending plan, which meets 99% of President Clinton’s request, “represents a very significant turnaround for the IRS,” he said.

For the first time in six years, it will permit the tax-collecting agency to start hiring both to replace retirees and other departures and to add the equivalent of 2,079 full-time staff, Rossotti said.

This would let the IRS fill “a substantial number of special agent, revenue agent and revenue officer positions” as well as add tax specialist and taxpayer resolution representatives and other employees called for in a new organizational structure, he said.

The IRS, the Treasury’s largest agency, currently employs about 98,000 people.