If you’ve tried to reach the IRS lately, good luck. Walk-in centers are closed, phone lines are jammed, and the Taxpayer Advocate Service—the office that helps when something goes wrong—is largely offline. The agency, however, says statutory deadlines still apply, meaning you’re expected to file, pay, and comply on time, even if no one’s picking up the phone on the other end.

As the government shutdown drags on, the IRS is running on fumes. About half its employees have been furloughed or face layoffs, including many in enforcement and compliance—the divisions that make sure everyone pays what they owe. The rest are doing their best to keep essential functions afloat. Electronic filing still works, and refunds are still being processed for simple, error-free returns. But that’s about where the good news ends.

Meanwhile, automated systems are still churning out collection notices, even though the humans who normally fix errors or process responses aren’t there. That’s like keeping the autopilot on while the pilots are locked out of the cockpit.

The administration’s “reduction in force” has only deepened the problem. Hundreds of IRS employees—mostly in the Treasury Department’s core operations—received layoff notices just as the shutdown entered its third week. Even before this, years of funding cuts had hollowed out the agency’s enforcement capacity. And while the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act sent the agency an $80 billion bump, including $46 billion for enforcement, subsequent spending deals have pulled back nearly $42 billion, mostly from the enforcement account. Audit rates now are at historic lows, refund delays are mounting, and the IRS’s technology systems creak under demand.

Now, with tens of thousands sidelined and a hiring freeze in place, the agency that funds the government is being told to “do more with less”—while also implementing major new tax provisions from this summer’s fiscal package.

Even as the shutdown heads toward the forty-day mark, the IRS is quietly recalling small numbers of staff under its updated contingency plan. The agency’s latest plan, finalized October 18 and only recently released, authorizes 39,982 employees—about 54 percent of the workforce—to stay on the job. Most of those added positions are in the Office of Chief Counsel, which is critical to drafting the regulations and guidance Treasury must issue before next year’s filing season.

That work has taken on new urgency. The Treasury Department is racing to interpret and implement the tax changes Republicans included in this summer’s fiscal package—from new deductions for tipped income and overtime pay to overhauled international provisions that will reshape how U.S. companies are taxed abroad. Roughly 40 percent of the employees recently brought back are counsel staff helping write that guidance.

Still, half the agency remains furloughed, and many public-facing services—walk-in centers, phone lines, and the Taxpayer Advocate Service—are operating at minimal levels. Filing season normally opens in January, but the combination of delayed rulemaking and diminished staffing raises doubts about whether the agency can deliver a smooth start.

A recent Government Accountability Office report underscores how the shutdown’s damage comes on top of existing dysfunction. The IRS spent about $1.5 billion on modernization projects last year—roughly half a billion less than planned—and then hit pause on nearly all of them this spring while it reevaluates priorities. Sixteen of twenty-three programs came in under budget because of contract delays and staff shortages, not efficiency. The GAO warned that the pause and underspending could stall the agency’s efforts to replace its aging systems—some built on 1960s-era COBOL code.

Let’s be clear: gutting the IRS doesn’t save taxpayers money. It costs them. Every dollar the agency fails to collect from noncompliant taxpayers—last estimated at $696 billion in 2022—is a dollar honest taxpayers have to make up. Every delayed refund, unanswered letter, or unresolved notice is time and money wasted.

That’s not fiscal conservatism; it’s self-sabotage. When Washington kneecaps its own revenue collector, it doesn’t make government smaller—it just makes it less competent. And taxpayers, as always, pick up the tab.

Fiscal responsibility starts with a functioning government. That means paying the bills on time, keeping the lights on, and ensuring the IRS has the tools and staff to do its job. We can debate tax policy all day, but none of it works if the agency responsible for enforcing it is shut down, hollowed out, or treated like a political pawn.