It’s very difficult to fire a Federal Employee because of the unions. Federal Union Contracts classify employees into personnel categories. Depending on their category, the contracts make it either easier or more difficult to terminate a Federal Employee.
The President signed an Executive Order on June 3rd, where thirteen IRS positions have been grouped into a new personnel category that makes it easier to fire individuals in those roles. The positions, including human resources specialists, senior advisers, program managers, and attorney-advisers, have been reclassified into Schedule Policy/Career, along with thousands of other positions across the federal government.
The order finalizes the lengthy implementation process of the new service category, which is designed to strip the typical protections afforded to civil servants from employees deemed “policy-determining, policy-making, and policy-advocating.” Other reclassified positions include senior-level counselors to the commissioner, counselors to the general counsel, and senior legal advisers for regulatory affairs in the Office of Chief Counsel.
Treasury also reclassified a host of positions across its subdivisions, including the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. No positions in the Office of Tax Policy were moved.
Federal unions, including the National Treasury Employees Union have opposed the reclassification, viewing it as a way to fire career staff and replace them with political loyalists. The President said the move aims to make it easier to fire employees for misconduct or poor performance.
Since the new administration took office, the IRS has lost over 25 percent of its employees to the deferred resignation program and other workforce reductions. The Office of Personnel Management gave agencies the green light to begin reclassifying employees under a final rule published in February, pending final approval from the White House.
Let me leave you with this…
Wanna guess what this means? That’s right. You guessed it.
They’re going to fire even more people at the IRS. It also means that machines will handle more of the Service’s regular day-to-day operations.
For grins, I just called the Practitioner Priority Line. This special telephone number allows practitioners like me to skip the line and immediately reach someone at the Service.
Before all of this began, my wait times were less than 5 minutes. I just received a recorded message stating that no one was available and that I should try my call later.
Most of the time, to resolve even the simplest issues, we’ll need to write a letter and wait three to six months for a response.
This also means that the ridiculous machine-written IRS letters making no logical sense, which our clients have been receiving for no reason, will probably continue and even increase. If there’s ever been a time in recent history when electronically filing a return is a bad idea, it’s certainly now.
They only began allowing electronic filing fifteen years ago so they wouldn’t have to pay someone to type the numbers we put on returns into the system for checking. If we’re going to have even more machines checking our work, mailing it in makes more sense.
If you’re having problems with your accounting and tax work, we’d love to help. Please contact us today.
We’re all going to get through this. Let’s get through it together…
Accounting Solutions Ltd. stands ready to complete our mission and purpose of protecting you, your family, and your business. Whether you need Payroll Services, Accounting and Tax Work, Tax Planning, or Tax Representation, you have but to ask. I’m here and I remain,
Sincerely yours,
Chris Amundson
President
Accounting Solutions Ltd.
773-267-7500
888-310-0300
www.SalarySolutions.net
www.AccountingSolutionsLtd.com
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