IRS CEO Frank Bisignano discusses a report on ‘Varney & Company’ regarding staffing, higher refunds and Trump accounts.
IRS CEO Frank Bisignano on Monday dismissed reports that the agency is understaffed, telling Fox Business that “there is no shortage of staff” and pointing to the strong tax season performance as evidence.
“That’s because people say, ‘If you had 100,000, and now you have 72,000, you’ll have fewer employees,'” Bisignano said on “Varney & Company,” referencing the decline in the agency’s workforce.
“But we’ve run organizations our whole lives to increase productivity and quality, and that’s through technology,” he said.
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Frank Bisignano speaks before President Donald Trump signs a presidential proclamation honoring the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act in the Oval Office of the White House on August 14, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Bisignano’s comments challenge headlines that have said the IRS is struggling to keep up with staffing cuts, including a recent Politico report that raised concerns as the agency works to implement new Republican-led tax breaks.
He suggested those concerns were ignored by how the agency has shifted its focus beyond raw headcount and toward productivity and efficiency, using “every tool imaginable” to maintain high-performance standards.
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A sign of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seen outside its building in Washington, DC on February 13, 2025. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
“When I came in October we started and we changed the way we thought about call centers. We changed our metrics on how we were going to deliver,” he said.
“By making technical changes to implement OBBB (One Big Beautiful Bill), we are issuing refunds faster and at a larger scale than ever before.”
He also stressed the agency’s use of artificial intelligence to boost compliance and warned that taxpayers attempting to violate the rules will be caught.
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“We’re going to find them. That’s the job,” he said.
“You think about places using AI and technology, it’s really all around it, increasing compliance. So if you say, what are we doing? We’re taking customer service to the best season ever, right? We’re increasing collections, increasing revenue, and we’re protecting privacy, and that’s a mantra.“
