In March 2025, a rumor spread online that most of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents that U.S. President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired were forensic auditors trained to investigate corporations and billionaires.
Numerous social media users on X, Instagram and Threads spread versions of this claim, while one Facebook page wrote: "Turns out most of the IRS agents fired by Musk were forensic auditors trained to audit corporations and billionaires" (archived, archived, archived, archived, archived). Snopes readers also asked us if the rumor was true.
As part of the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts, DOGE — of which tech mogul Elon Musk is the public face — has been instructed to shrink the size of the federal workforce.
(Facebook / Feminist News)
However, it was not clear whether most were from such a specific division. It was not possible to find irrefutable evidence either proving or disproving the rumor.
Multiple reputable news outlets claimed to have spoken to IRS insiders suggesting the agency fired employees from a range of departments in February. Most noted that the IRS did not respond to their requests for comment. Likewise, as of this writing, the tax agency had not published a comment on its online newsroom (archived, archived). We have contacted the IRS via the Department of the Treasury and will update this story if they respond.
Numerous reputable news media outlets reported that in February 2025, the IRS fired roughly 7,000 probationary employees with one year or less of service (archived, archived, archived).
The Associated Press said that an employee at the tax agency told the outlet, on condition of anonymity, that the number largely included workers in compliance departments who ensure taxpayers are abiding by the tax code, filing their returns and paying their taxes among other duties. However, due to the source being anonymous, it was not possible to verify their comment.
The Washington Post reported that a person familiar with the decision told the newspaper that about 5,000 of those fired were from the "
Whereas, an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) article stated that the Small Business and Self-Employed Division, which audits businesses with assets of $10 million or less, reportedly lost the largest number of employees in February's lay offs (archived).
The report also said a significant number of the Large Business and International Division (LB&I), which audits the wealthiest taxpayers in the U.S., were probationary employees, so they could have been affected by the job cuts. However, the ICIJ added: "It remains unclear how many employees the Large Business & International Division (LB&I) lost as a result of the recent terminations." The IRS reportedly did not respond to the ICIJ's request for comment.
The investigative journalists consortium wrote about current unnamed employees telling the outlet that audits of cases involving wealthier individuals and corporations were at "immediate risk of being closed prematurely without action" because of a lack of available IRS personnel to complete them. According to the ICIJ, a senior revenue agent at the LB&I also said cases would be shut down.
The quote read: "All of a sudden, these cases are going to be closed and we're going to look like idiots [ … ] There is no one left to work them. The remaining agents have full caseloads."
However, the ICIJ article did not specify whether the closing of any cases was due to the majority of people fired having been employed by a particular department.