On Friday
March 27, according to the Federal News Network,[1]
effective today, IRS employees are to evacuate their posts in an effort to
limit the spread of COVID-19, which has now claimed the United States as the
world leader in the number of infected people. Those that are able to work from
home are directed to do so.
The order is
clearly a good-faith effort by the Treasury Department to do its part in
fighting the national emergency. According to the National Treasury Employees
Union (“NTEU”), the IRS can issue such an order under Treasury Regulations,
notwithstanding any collective bargaining agreement that may be in place.
Despite the order, the NTEU also stated that the IRS will expressly reserve the
right to direct employees to report for work, as needed, to carry out mission critical
activities.
Carrying out
the order by the IRS as a whole for any lengthy period will be a daunting task
for an agency that is behind the times in terms of technology. The IRS
currently has about 75,000 full time workers (computed as “full time
equivalents” or FTEs for 2019) spread throughout the 50 states and D.C., and
major cities around the world.
According to
the FNN article, the evacuation order says if the employee currently has an
approved work-remotely agreement in place, and is already working from home,
they are considered “telework ready” and are expected to continue to work under
their present arrangement. For those workers who have an approved telework
agreement in place but are not yet teleworking, they are apparently ordered to
start working from home.
For those
employees in a “telework eligible position” and otherwise meet the requirements
but have not yet entered into a telework agreement, they may be assigned “any work necessary or required to be
performed during the evacuation period as long as the employee has the
necessary knowledge or skills to perform the work assignments.”
For those
employees who lack the skills and knowledge to perform a job which is telework
eligible, they are apparently ordered to evacuate their post of duty and remain
on standby to receive possible orders from management to perform
mission-critical duties.
On the
bright side, it should be a smooth transition for many revenue officers, revenue
agents, tax examiners, or special agents who already work remotely. Additionally,
it should be expected that a certain number of employees will continue
reporting for work to carry out mission critical tasks, like processing
payments and mail, protecting the government’s interest to help ensure statutes
of limitation do not lapse, etc. No doubt the activities of the IRS will be
slowed during this time, but the critical work will carry on.
There will be a large number of employees,
likely in the thousands, for whom there is simply no work. The NTEU is working
through these issues. Nevertheless, the
two main points are that the IRS is doing what it can to protect workers, and is
continuing to carry out its mission. It is clear that the IRS managers in
Washington who drafted the evacuation order did not contemplate all issues in
the short time it had to issue this unprecedented order.
There is
little doubt the IRS will be issuing guidance to its employees in the days to
come on exactly how the order will be carried out. One of the issues to think
through, for example, is that a revenue agent can work at home completing a
final audit report, the manager can review and approve it, but how will it ultimately
be processed and issued to the taxpayer? Will this type of processing be deemed
mission critical to the IRS? What about the stimulus checks; how are those to
be issued, and will they be delayed? Do the answers to these types of questions
change if the order is in place for a longer period of time, compared to a week
or two? The IRS has been through shutdowns before, but this is unprecedented.
Recall also that
even before the onset of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the IRS has been
constrained by a limited budget and experienced shutdowns due to congressional
impasse in approving a budget. The budget cuts have been sustained by drastic
staffing cuts, resulting in reduction in taxpayer service, employee training,
and upgrading the IRS’s 1960s-era main frames. Only recently has it been able
to hire and begin to replenish its ranks. While there are indeed much bigger
concerns right now, it is certainly not the best time for this to be hitting
the IRS.
Surely, IRS
workers are entitled to the very same protections as every other American
worker during the new reality. The
new evacuation order most assuredly will be a welcome development for the IRS
rank and file. Notwithstanding, for those taxpayers and practitioners who are
working in good faith to maintain an appropriate level of tax compliance in the
new era, working with the IRS from this
time forward will present new challenges. But let there be no doubt, we will all
get through this.
[1] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2020/03/nteu-says-irs-preparing-evacuation-notice-to-send-all-employees-home/
