The general appropriations bill approved by the House of Representatives on June 26 would increase IRS funding by nearly $700 million in fiscal year 2020, to $12 billion, according to Accounting Today. Funding for enforcement would go up by $297 million; there would also be a $67 million increase for taxpayer services and a $140 million increase for business systems modernization.

In addition, IRS employees would, along with other federal workers, get a 2.6 percent raise, plus 0.5 percent toward “locality pay,” for an average increase of 3.1 percent. That raise would equal what is currently proposed for members of the military. The bill has yet to be passed by the Senate.

Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said, “For an agency that has lost 23,000 full-time employees over the last nine years, the renewed investment is a welcome sign that Congress is ready to reverse the decline and rebuild the IRS’ workforce, enforcement activity, technology and customer service to even higher levels.”

According to Accounting Today, the IRS has been seeking to increase its hiring in order to compensate for labor shortages resulting from budget and staffing cuts in past years, as well as the demoralizing impact of a series of government shutdowns.