Chavi Schwarzbaum and her colleagues at the Revenue Service Office at Center City were nervous about their work for several weeks.
But they really started to worry about a week ago, when they heard that Elon Musk and his team reducing costs began to focus on IRS. Her group was then during training in Tennessee.
“We were like:” Oh, no. What happens if they release us on Thursday evening or Friday morning? Does this mean that they cancel our flights? Will we get stuck in Tennessee and have to go home? It was terrible – she said.
Finally they got bad news in E -Maili pairs this week, Wednesday and Thursday. About 400 test employees were dismissed, most of them from the gigantic IRS office on the 30th streets of the Market Square at University City and other from the Schwarzbaum office on the streets of 6 and Arch.
Understanding managers, without notification of work and supervising the dismissal, watched their employees pack and leave, she said.
“It’s painful, what is happening and the inner feeling is terrible,” said Schwarzbaum on Friday, in an interview with her house in Rhawnhurst. “You just walk, everyone is crying, everyone devastated, people’s lives are elevated.”
She said that those who avoided the ending are petrified, that their work would soon be on the chopping block.
“The mood was dark and intense. We felt as if we were pawns in the game and just waiting for our turn and dropping the board. There is a real fear of their future among all employees – she said. “The sense of authoritarianism and interference should not be understated.”
Aiming at IRS in the tax season
IRS Purge was the latest and most effective party of federal dismissals of employees in Philadelphia, a part of the nationwide reduction of the government’s workforce by the Trump administration, which apparently hit over 10,000 employees.
Most of them are a curator employees who had less than a year of work or have recently advanced and cannot easily appeal against their dismissals.
In the Philly region, they belong to the National Park Service Service, FAA aviation security worker at the airport and employees of the Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, Veterans Department and the Department of Agriculture, in accordance with Media reports.
Many report their notifications about the termination included the language of the boiler plate, in which it was found that they were released for performance reasons, despite the fact that they trained for most of their compact terms and received praise from their managers for their quality of work.
“They refer to the reason why I am released is my performance. But to this day I have not received a performance review ”, Nicholas Berardi, who worked for IRS for about three months, He said 6ABC after he was released Thursday.
“We didn’t have time for an annual review,” said Schwarzbaum, who started in IRS in May last year. “My review in the middle of the year was great. [Our managers] They are beyond themselves. The whole team is forgiven. They put so much in us and are devastated, they are broken. “
On Thursday, outside the University of University City, some dismissed employees said that the loss of so many people in the tax season may affect services and even invite fraud, a sentiment repeated by their representatives at the National Treasury of Employees.
“For people who would say that these cuts are necessary, I have two questions,” said 6ABC Alex Jay Berman, executive vice president of NTEU Chapter 71. “Do you not want your federal government to work? And don’t you want your federal government to work for all Americans? “
Inquirer reports that IRS has over 3600 employees in Philadelphia.
The agency has about 100,000 employees throughout the country, of which 6,700 is resolved. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council of the White House, said on Thursday that the exemptions are “absolutely on the table for good reasons” and that the treasury secretary Scott Bessent believes that IRS can afford to lose over 3,500 people, New York Times reported.
On Thursday, the federal judge rejected the conclusions of many trade unions to block mass fire, saying that they must first go before the federal body of employment relations. The relationships have He undertook to continue his affairs.
“The lawsuit that we filed with our partners from the trade union will be heard, and federal employees will get their day in court to question the mass releases and other attacks on their work, their agencies and service in the country,” NTEU Doreen Greenwald chairman he said.
Reversal of IRS revival
Schwarzbaum is the Filly family, which has worked in the tax department of the New York financial planning company for 15 years.
She said she was waiting for years He notoriously understood IRS start employing people. In the end it started doing it two years ago, after Congress Appropriated $ 80 billion in the Act on inflation reduction And the Biden administration has published an expansion plan.
She said that her elderly company offered her financial incentive, but rejected her in favor of a more stable work schedule at IRS.
“I made this change because I wanted to be more accessible to my children,” said Schwarzbaum, who has children aged 10, 14 and 16. “I just felt that before they left the house, I don’t want to remember them, I don’t want them to remember me, let me sit only in the basement, performing taxes. “
“I left a lot of money on the table to be released after nine months,” she added.
At IRS, she controlled gigantic corporations, looking for errors or income from tax entries. She said that the amendments she made could add millions of dollars to their tax accounts.
“Regardless of whether they are penalties, regardless of whether they are transactions that could not be deducted, whether the income was not received or things that were not registered correctly,” she said.
She noticed that her department was also controlled by people with high net value. The federal government loses huge amounts of tax revenues that is guilty, not so much because people are trying to avoid paying, but because IRS lacked staff to facilitate them understand their duties, she said.
“IRS was very underfunded for a very long time. There was no one who could answer their questions, and many of them, when we pay attention, want to do the right thing. But they need facilitate – she said.
Considering that Musk and President Donald Trump focus on saving money, it makes no sense to go to IRS and the treasury department for reduction, especially in the middle of the tax season, argued Schwarzbaum.
“Everyone talks about the deficit. If you are going to cut someone, why do you cut IRS? Who will bring income? “She asked.
Required selected officials stink
Schwarzbaum said she was lucky because her husband has a job that provides health insurance for the family. She said that many of the ended people have no such luxury. He also expects him to receive some work by performing tax accounting.
But at the moment its main goal is to call and send E -Mail messages to selected officials and demand to fight purge.
“I understand that a lot is happening on the execution order, so their power to change is limited. But their power is not the voice and I do not feel that I hear sufficiently selected officials and I do not hear them aggressively enough, “she said.
“Where is [U.S. Rep.] Brendan Boyle? Where is Senator Fetterman? Where is Shapiro governor? Why is there no coalition of democratic governors? “She said. Court lawsuits are good: “But this is not what an ordinary person hears and understands. Democrats must start taking a different approach and I don’t see them doing it. “
(Boyle did criticize IRScalling them “a blow to these families, our local economy and every taxpayer.” Fetterman has He followed the musk For an attempt to access IRS tax data, but it seems that burnout has been mentioned. Shapiro did not discuss the solutions, but He wrote on Friday“Union Pennsylvania workers are the best in the country – and I will always have their backs.”)
The mass dismissal of Trump, hundreds of IRS employees in Philly, is a blow to these families, our local economy and every taxpayer.
We are in the middle of the tax season – and these exemptions will mean longer waiting times for our neighbors who are looking for facilitate from IRS. https://t.co/kggutiibza
– Rep. Brendan Boyle (@Congboyle) February 21, 2025
In addition to smoking selected officials, Schwarzbaum said that she could volunteer to Nteu if she could find time looking for a up-to-date job.
“I want it to be a thing. I want to shake the system a bit. This is my plan for the next two weeks – she said. “And then to start looking for something more robust.”
