The Trump administration reportedly started to lay off nearly 7,000 new workers from the IRS on Thursday, including many who work in enforcement. A day earlier, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News that Trump’s goal is to “abolish” the IRS and replace its tax revenue with tariff cash.

The tax agency is laying off 7,000 employees, but there are protections for taxpayers whose refund payments are delayed.

The Trump administration began layoffs at the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday, multiple outlets reported—leading to questions of what the impact will be on tax season, which is underway, as the administration carries out mass layoffs at various federal agencies amid budget-cutting efforts.

A tearful executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6 percent of the agency’s workforce in the midst of the busy tax-filing season.

The Trump Administration plans to lay off 6,000 or more recently hired workers at the Internal Revenue Service. That could affect the tax season.

The cuts targeting mostly new and recently promoted workers are part of the administration's push to shrink the federal work force.

Tax season is here again in the United States and as millions of Americans file their 2024 taxes with the Internal Revenue Service, one of the questions most often asked is “Where is my refund?” The 2025 season officially kicked off January 27 and the IRS expects more than 140 million tax returns to be filed by the April 15 tax deadline.