A Washington think tank’s plan to change the IRS and the federal workforce has made some IRS employees anxious.
Project 2025, a 900-page roadmap for the next Republican president created by the Heritage Foundation, proposes an array of changes to the IRS. Some of the proposals — including reinstating an executive order from former President Trump that would make it easier to fire federal employees — are bringing a cloud of uncertainty to unionized employees at the IRS.
“They don’t know what’s coming, but it doesn’t sound good,” said John Kelshaw, an instructor for newly hired revenue agents in the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed Division.
Among the Heritage Foundation’s tax policy priorities are making permanent the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and eliminating all individual and corporate deductions.
The authors of Project 2025 argue for the reinstatement of Executive Order 13957, which was issued in 2020 near the end of Trump’s term. The order urged agencies to allow certain federal employees to be reclassified under a new Schedule F and consequently removed civil service protections for those workers. President Biden rescinded the order after taking office.
According to Kelshaw, who also holds a leadership position at the National Treasury Employees Union, uncertainty among employees he’s spoken with stems from a lack of understanding of how Schedule F would affect them.
“We can tell them what we know, but we don’t have any real solid answers at this point,” Kelshaw said, “So when there’s no answers, there’s a lot of fear and concern.”
The Project 2025 document, which describes the IRS as “a poorly managed, utterly unresponsive and increasingly politicized agency,” proposes requiring more presidential appointees in leadership positions at the agency and closing its Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Regarding funding, the proposal calls for holding the IRS’s budget constant in real terms, effectively cutting off the funding boost from the Inflation Reduction Act, and boosting funding for the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate.
Kelshaw said the negative rhetoric surrounding the IRS is another point of concern. “Are they going to be safe in the workplace when people keep saying we’re the bad guy?” he said.
Scope of Schedule F
Although the executive order on Schedule F was written to apply only to employees in confidential or policy-related jobs, the NTEU later determined that the Office of Management and Budget, helmed by Russell Vought during the Trump administration, planned to apply the order more broadly, potentially affecting tens of thousands of employees in lower-ranking positions across the government.
“Project 2025, and all of the things in it, do not bode well for what the federal government looks like going forward,” NTEU President Doreen P. Greenwald said. Greenwald, who worked at the IRS for over 30 years, said she never felt like colleagues brought politics into the building with them.
“You want a civil service that is continuous, regardless of a change in the White House, because the work needs to get done and you want people who have that skill level to do it,” Greenwald said.
While Project 2025 isn’t publicly backed by Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, it contains several references to Trump-era policies, and its authors include Vought and more than 100 other advisers connected to Trump.
The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether Trump plans to reinstate the Schedule F order if reelected.
According to Greenwald, the NTEU has taken some steps to mitigate the order should it return, including a regulation proposed by the union and adopted by the Office of Personnel Management that would allow employees to appeal a movement into Schedule F.
In a July 21 statement on Biden’s announcement to withdraw from his 2024 reelection campaign, Greenwald applauded the president’s decision to repeal the Schedule F order in his first week in office and said he “consistently championed the essential role of the nonpartisan civil service.”
Who’s in Charge?
Currently, only the IRS commissioner and chief counsel are chosen by the president.
Project 2025 proposes making seven more leadership positions presidential appointees, including the national taxpayer advocate and the commissioners of the SB/SE and Large Business and International divisions.
“There will be a chilling effect if that happens,” Kelshaw said, adding that while he hasn’t always thought every manager was perfect, they were always willing to do what was in the best interest of the country.
The proposal was also met with skepticism from former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.
“The IRS is an impartial agency proudly serving the people of our country,” Rettig said in an email. “The career IRS employees care deeply about preserving the impartial nature of all IRS operations. The IRS does not need nor should it have additional presidential appointments for leadership positions.”
Greenwald wondered if a more political leadership structure would trickle down and affect critical IRS operations such as audit selection or collections.
“Employees are very familiar with why they are hired — they don’t want politics to drive the work they do,” Greenwald said. “They want their knowledge and experience to drive the work they do.”
Project 2025 proposes more resources for the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, including a $44 million funding spike and expansion of the national taxpayer advocate’s duties.
The national taxpayer advocate should be able to make his or her own personnel decisions, have guaranteed access to documents needed to investigate IRS administration, and file amicus briefs independently, according to the plan.
The proposal also emphasizes a lack of progress under the IRS’s information technology modernization project, arguing that “the problem is one of management.” Accordingly, the plan calls for a review of the agency’s IT contracts, the replacement of all subordinates to the deputy commissioner, and a new oversight board that comprises IT experts from the private sector.
‘Draconian Blueprint’
Project 2025 has drawn the ire of some members of Congress.
“Project 2025 is a draconian blueprint for disaster for federal employees and the American people who rely on them every day,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., said in an email.
“The Schedule F proposal, which would gut the civil service of experts and career employees and replace them with political hacks, is a particularly acute threat to our democracy, our national security, and our government’s ability to function the way the American people expect it to," Connolly said.
Connolly, who represents a district where many federal employees live, also sponsored legislation — the Saving the Civil Service Act (H.R. 1002) — that would prevent the reclassification of federal workers unless certain conditions are met.
The Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.