Republicans would crush the IRS by forcing its workers back into the office

In the bustling corridors of power, where the future of American governance is debated, a new battlefield has emerged that is surprisingly intimate yet profoundly important: the workspaces of federal employees.

The Internal Revenue Service, a cornerstone of the federal apparatus, finds itself at the epicenter of this debate, as Republican leaders wield sharp critiques against its telework policies. This controversy is not just about where IRS employees plug in their laptops. Rather, it is a microcosm of the broader ideological clash over the size and scope of government in our lives. The IRS’s approach to telework has become a litmus test for the future of federal work in an era defined by rapid technological and cultural shifts.

The narrative took a significant turn during a recent House Ways and Means Committee hearing, where IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel revealed a workforce evenly split between in-person and remote setups. This disclosure, prompted by probing questions from Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.), highlighted operational challenges but also underscored a deeper ideological rift.

“Have all IRS employees returned to the office for five-day workweeks since COVID?” Estes asked. “I know the GAO issued a report this fall that high percentages of offices across all agencies, not just the IRS, had not returned to the office.”

Werfel responded that “it’s 50 percent on-site versus 50 percent working in some remote location.”

Estes followed up: “So how can somebody in a remote location be handling these tax returns? That just seems to me that it’s not doing the job that needs to be done to help service American constituents.”

Estes’s concerns about telework in the IRS may appear to reflect a desire for the IRS to be more effective and for taxpayers’ personal information more secure. But in reality, there’s a not-so-hidden agenda among Republicans. They don’t like the IRS. They prefer for it to be weak.

When former Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) was elected, one of his first moves was to keep a campaign promise by moving to repeal the $80 billion IRS funding boost that had been provided in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) similarly pursued funding cuts to the IRS.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that boosted financial support for the IRS could help it collect an additional $180.4 billion in taxes over 10 years, for a nominal annual return of 8.1 percent on the initial investment. Conservative Republicans made clear during the 2022 campaign that they would sooner forgo this modest additional revenue, and allow deficits to grow accordingly, than give the IRS more money or power.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) stated openly that taking funding from the IRS is about reducing “the size of a weaponized agency and [protecting] hardworking American families and businesses.” Others might describe the funding cuts differently — for example, as preventing the IRS from collecting taxes from deadbeats and cheats.

Either way, the attack by Estes on telework at the IRS fits within this broader agenda. Telework has proven highly beneficial for the operations of the U.S. government, but his agenda has less to do with an efficient IRS than it does with a less powerful IRS.

The Office of Personnel Management’s recent annual report on telework in the U.S. government paints a compelling picture. Telework has been shown to boost retention significantly, with 68 percent of frequent remote-workers intending to stay in their roles, compared to a mere 53 percent of those who don’t telework. Engagement levels tell a similar story, with frequent teleworkers reporting a 77 percent engagement rate, dwarfing the 59 percent rate among their office-bound counterparts. Moreover, the performance benefits of telework are already well known, with more than 84 pecent of employees and managers acknowledging improved work quality and customer satisfaction.

External data sources evaluating the federal employment landscape reinforce this data. A Federal Times survey spanning more than 960 federal workers from a variety of agencies shed light on the broader implications of enforced return-to-office directives. More than one-third of those departing government roles cited the loss of telework options as a pivotal factor in their decision. Additionally, 30 percent acknowledged that the potential for remote work heavily influenced their career choices. In turn, Hubstaff’s thorough investigation into remote work productivity found that remote employees engage in approximately 273 minutes of uninterrupted, high-quality work each day, in contrast to the mere 223 minutes recorded for those in a conventional office setting.

In other words, the IRS gains tremendous benefits from telework in its operations. On the one hand, its employees are more productive and engaged, enabling them to perform their jobs better. On the other hand, the IRS is better able to retain its best staff and recruit better talent, improving the quality of human capital responsible for gathering government revenue.

Resistance to the IRS’s telework policies thus reflect Republicans’ stated desire to reduce the agency’s reach. Ostensibly framed as a concern for efficiency, their opposition masks a broader ideological struggle over government power. In the face of telework’s evident benefits, such as improved productivity and cost savings, Republicans would sooner disown their stated commitment to controlling debt than let the agency keep working in a more efficient arrangement.

When defending the merits of flexible work arrangements and preserving the integrity of vital federal functions, it is essential to recognize the promotion of an unrelated agenda. Republicans should be made to answer whether it is worth making the government less efficient and more expensive in order to make it at the same time less potent.

Gleb Tsipursky serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. He is the author of Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.