2025-03-27
24 分钟We are just a few weeks out from April 15,
Tax Day, and many officials at the IRS are feeling nervous.
The forecast right now is a 10% decrease in tax revenue for this filing season.
Jacob Bogage is a congressional economics correspondent for the post.
The IRS collects about $5 trillion in taxes every year.
If we're looking at a 10% drop, that's $500 billion.
And to put that in perspective, the Defense department spent about $825 billion last year.
That's a huge amount of money that will have impacts across the federal government immediately.
Jacob says that tax officials are predicting a massive drop in tax revenue this year.
And the reasons have a lot to do with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency,
or doge.
Over the last few months, DOGE has taken steps to severely reduce the size and scope of the irs.
They've laid off thousands of staff, halted efforts to modernize the tax system,
and have fired or forced out officials who've stood in their way.
A commissioner of Internal Revenue, the acting Commissioner of the irs,
the Chief Human Capital officer, the chief Procurement officer,
the acting Chief Procurement officer,
the chief counsel and the chief Transformation and Strategy Officer,
and the chief of tax compliance.
All of these people have either been actively fired by the Trump administration or said,