00:00IRS reports they are making staffing changes amid shutdown.
00:05The IRS furloughed nearly half its workforce on Wednesday as the government shutdown hit its eighth day with no clear path to resolution in sight.
00:14Approximately 40,000 IRS employees remain on the job, while more than 35,000 are at home without pay, waiting for Washington to act.
00:23The shutdown has slowed or halted many services, and IRS operations are significantly scaled back.
00:30Hitting taxpayers just as extension returns come due.
00:33Taxpayers around the country will now have a much harder time getting the assistance they need, just as they get ready to file their extension returns due next week, said Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, in a statement.
00:46Every day these employees are locked out of work is another day of frustration for taxpayers and a growing backlog of work that sits and waits for the shutdown to end.
00:55The IRS's contingency plan allowed limited operations for the first five business days of the shutdown, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.
01:03That funding appears to have run out, forcing the agency to begin widespread furloughs.
01:08The shutdown centers on a standoff between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over Obamacare premium tax credits.
01:14Democrats want them fully restored after cuts under President Donald Trump's one big beautiful bill, while Republicans argue restoration would provide free health care to more than a million illegal immigrants, and is unacceptable while federal employees are sent home without pay.
01:31The political stalemate has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers in limbo.
01:36President Trump warned that up to 750,000 employees could be furloughed, with no guarantee of back pay, while an IRS notice promised back pay for both furloughed and active staff, creating uncertainty.
01:50Neither the IRS, the Treasury Department, nor the White House has clarified.
01:54After the 2024 layoffs that cut the IRS workforce from 100,000 to 75,000, nearly half of the remaining employees are now furloughed, raising concerns about continued tax processing and enforcement during the second week of the shutdown.
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