Last week, President Trump fired 6,700 IRS employees, while the chronically underfunded agency, is in the midst of tax season. In a New York Times guest essay, seven former IRS commissioners, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, decried the cuts, which constitute 7% of the agency’s work force, as bad policy that would make the agency less efficient and effective. We talk to tax experts and former IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel, who oversaw efforts to overhaul the agency during the Biden administration, about the impact of these cuts to the agency and to the federal budget and Trump’s policy towards the IRS.

Guests:

Vanessa Williamson, senior fellow, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center; she is the author of "Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes'; she is also a senior fellow in the Governance Studies department at Brookings

Daniel Werfel, former IRS commissioner, Werfel served as the 50th Commissioner of the IRS from March 2023 to January 2025

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