In an internal memo to agency employees, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John A. Koskinen announced the IRS’s intention to hire between 600 and 700 enforcement personnel.  It is estimated that between 2010 and the end of 2016, the IRS will have lost more than 17,000 employees, 5,000 from the enforcement area.  The hiring, which is to occur in two waves, should fill key gaps in the IRS’s enforcement workforce created by years of attrition.  This will be the IRS’s first significant enforcement hiring in more than five years.

Whether an increase in enforcement personnel will change the trend of a lax IRS remains to be seen.  Taxpayers, however, should pay close attention to how this increase in IRS personnel affects the audit of their returns and the level of depth of an IRS examination.  Stay tuned!

More details can be found here.