Federal Fiscal & Tax Policy
Tax season with a hollowed-out IRS: What do taxpayers need to know?
Since January 2025, the Internal Revenue Service shed a quarter of its staff and most of its senior civil service leadership. It paused its modernization efforts and canceled its in-house free tax filing software, Direct File. It entered into an unprecedented data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, and a district court judge recently found that the agency unlawfully shared data with ICE over 42,000 times. Just before tax season began, the agency announced that it would again reorganize its leadership and adopt new measures of taxpayer services. What are the implications of these changes for this tax season – and tax seasons to come?
On March 23, the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution hosted a webinar discussion on the Internal Revenue Service during tax season.
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Introducing the IRS Spotlight
Agenda
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March 23
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Panel discussion
Introduction and moderator
Vanessa Williamson Senior Fellow - Governance Studies, Senior Fellow - Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center @vanessawilliamson.bsky.socialPanelists
Brandon DeBot Senior Attorney Advisor and Policy Director - The Tax Law Center at NYU Law
Barry W. Johnson Nonresident Fellow - Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
Nina E. Olson Executive Director - Center for Taxpayer Rights
Rebecca Thompson Economic Justice Consultant Advocate for Equitable Tax Policies and Free Tax Programs
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