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The Trump Administration is Trying to Make Filing Taxes Suck Even More
Filing taxes is no one’s favorite pastime—and the Trump administration is trying to make it worse. While millions of people in the U.S. are trying to compete their tax returns before April 15, the administration is trying to undermine the programs and staff dedicated to helping families file and claim their tax benefits. This will especially hurt women and families, who benefit more from refundable tax credits, such as the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, that can be confusing to claim on your own.
Here are just some of the ways the Trump administration is making it harder for you to file your taxes this year.
Closing IRS taxpayer assistance centers that help families
As part of its illegal efforts to dismantle the federal government, the Trump administration is expected to close around 120 of the IRS’ taxpayer assistance centers—about a third of the centers in the country. These centers are essential to helping improve customer service at the IRS and helping families file their taxes. And thanks to increased funding, the staff at these centers are serving 37% more families in 2024 than the year before. While recent reports suggest that the closures won’t happen until after tax season, we still expect the chaos and uncertainty to impact the numbers of families these centers will be able to help this year.
Making it easier for the rich to cheat on their taxes by firing IRS employees
Not only are Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE trying to make it harder for families to file their taxes, they’re also making it easier for the wealthy to cheat on theirs. The administration has started laying off approximately 7,000 IRS employees, the majority of whom had been recently hired to enforce tax compliance, including by going after uncollected taxes from wealthy tax cheats. The Trump administration is also intending to divert a number of IRS employees from their critical tax work so that they can assist in deporting immigrant families. These layoffs and work changes will undoubtedly slow or possibly even stop the new enforcement efforts against wealthy people, even though the IRS has already successfully collected $1.3 billion in delinquent taxes from high-income filers as of September. Apparently, Trump would rather attack immigrant families and slash programs for women and families than make sure the wealthy pay their fair share. And the layoffs will likely impact customer service and slow down tax return processing, meaning families will have to wait longer for their tax returns.
Trying to steal private taxpayer data to attack immigrant families
In addition to cutting staff and programs, the Trump administration is also going after people’s private tax data. As part of its barrage of attacks on immigrant families, the Department of Homeland Security has asked the IRS to hand over the private information, including home addresses, of roughly 700,000 immigrant families. Immigrants make up one in seven U.S. residents and many immigrants who lack Social Security Numbers pay taxes. In 2022, undocumented immigrant taxpayers paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes (while some billionaires pay nothing at all)—contributing to programs like Medicaid, Social Security, and unemployment insurance. For so many immigrants and their families, this means paying into public benefits that they are largely excluded from accessing. There are strict rules that protect taxpayer information, and the IRS has so far refused to turn over the data. However, if successful, this unlawful overreach by the administration would punish families who voluntarily participate in the tax system and could dissuade families from filing their taxes.
In short: the Trump administration is making it easier for billionaires to get away with tax fraud while making it harder for regular families to file their taxes. And it will likely only get worse in future tax seasons: the administration is reportedly working on plans to cut the 90,000 IRS workforce in half. This drastic, unprecedented cut would not only hurt families and help wealthy tax cheats, but it could also make it impossible for the IRS to function at all.
We’re waiting to see just how harmful Trump’s attacks on the IRS prove to be. For now, there are still programs and resources available to help families file their taxes and claim their benefits this tax season. This includes the IRS’s Direct File program, which allows families to file with the IRS directly, easily, and for free.
