IRS will cut jobs handling returns as more file online

Work on paper forms to end for 7,000 as agency says 86% e-filed in 2015

The Internal Revenue Service said it will eliminate more than 7,000 jobs related to the processing of paper tax returns by 2024 in a move that will reduce its workforce by more than 8 percent -- and Covington, Ky., is the first in the firing line.

Citing the growth of electronic tax-return filing, the 84,000-person agency will eliminate the jobs in what it refers to as "submission processing" in Austin, Texas; Fresno, Calif.; and Covington.

By 2019, 1,800 of 4,100 jobs in the Cincinnati area will be eliminated in Covington. By 2021, 3,000 jobs will be eliminated in Fresno. And by 2024, 2,400 jobs will be eliminated in Austin.

The IRS will consolidate submission processing work in Kansas City, Mo., and Ogden, Utah, it said, saving $266 million by 2029.

The agency, which employs other workers in the affected areas, said it will not be folding up shop entirely, and that "submission processing employees have been able to transition into other positions" in the past.

"The IRS emphasizes that submission processing is only part of our wider operations in these three locations, and the IRS will continue to be a major employer in these areas due to work for other parts of the agency," the IRS said in a statement.

People in Covington, however, remain skeptical and confused about how their jobs are to be saved.

"They aren't telling us anything," said Ricky Riley, president of the Covington chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union. "When they announced this... we had people in the hallways crying."

Riley said it wasn't just IRS employees who would be affected. Contractors at the facility -- everyone from IT guys to the "lawn guys" -- face an uncertain future. And Covington isn't a boomtown.

"There's just no jobs there," Riley said.

In Covington, a city of 40,000 just outside Cincinnati, median household income is just about $35,000. Twenty percent of the population doesn't have health care. And 25 percent of residents live in poverty.

Processing tax returns filed by individuals and businesses by paper has been a reliable industry. At an Internal Revenue Service facility there, 1,800 employees, including 700 seasonal workers, deal with the glut of dead trees the agency receives daily.

Jason Sisk, president of the Fresno chapter of the employees union, said the IRS employees in his area were looking for more to do, not less.

"This is a big impact to us here," he said. "A lot of [workers] are seasonal and folks are willing to work year-round."

The IRS statement offered statistics sobering to anyone who makes their living processing paper tax returns. The majority of taxpayers file electronically: E-filing rose from 58 percent in 2008 to 86 percent in 2015, the statement said.

In addition, the IRS budget has shrunk $900 million since 2010, and the agency lost 17,000 jobs in that same period.

The National Treasury Employees Union's national branch, which represents about 70,000 IRS workers around the country, also said it was not consulted before the reductions were announced earlier this month, and criticized the move.

"This is distressing news for our members, many of whom have been loyal IRS employees for years," the union said in a statement. "Their well-being is our top priority."

A Section on 09/28/2016

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