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UnverifiableNews · General

No Verified TIGTA Report Shows IRS Paying $100K Employees to Answer Phones at $35K Jobs — Here's What We Know

“The Treasury Inspector General reported that the IRS reassigned higher-paid employees earning $100,000 or more to lower-level positions such as phone answering roles paying as little as $35,000 while maintaining their full salaries and benefits”

The argument in brief

A claim circulating online says a Treasury Inspector General report found the IRS reassigned high-paid employees to low-level phone roles while keeping their full salaries. No specific TIGTA report matching those exact figures has been publicly identified. The underlying pay practice described is real federal law, but the specific numbers and the report citation remain unverified.

Why it spread

The claim hits two deeply held frustrations at once — government inefficiency and wasteful spending — and wraps them in official-sounding language. Specific numbers like '$100,000' and '$35,000' make it feel documented and credible, even without a real source. People who distrust federal agencies or are already skeptical of government competence are primed to share it without checking.

The claim says a Treasury Inspector General report caught the IRS moving employees earning $100,000 or more into entry-level phone answering jobs paying around $35,000 — while letting them keep their full salaries and benefits. It sounds outrageous. But after checking TIGTA's published reports, no document matching those specific details has been found as of early 2025.

Here's what makes this tricky: the core mechanism described is completely real. Under federal law — specifically 5 U.S.C. 5362-5363, documented by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — employees who are involuntarily moved to lower-graded positions can legally keep their original pay for up to two years. It's called grade and pay retention, and it exists to protect workers from sudden income loss due to agency decisions outside their control. So the salary gap described isn't impossible — it's actually how federal HR works.

During 2025 IRS restructuring tied to DOGE-related workforce changes, Federal News Network and other outlets did report real reassignments of IRS staff to different functions. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers, also documented significant disruption. But neither independently confirmed the specific $100,000-to-$35,000 figures or pointed to a particular TIGTA report as the source.

TIGTA does regularly audit IRS workforce practices and its reports are publicly available at tigta.gov. If a report with these findings existed, it could be cited directly. The absence of a traceable citation is a red flag. Claims that reference official-sounding government reports but can't point to an actual document deserve extra scrutiny.

This kind of story spreads because it fuses two things people already believe: that government wastes money and that bureaucracies protect their own. When a claim fits that template perfectly — with specific dollar figures that feel authoritative — it travels fast. Watch for claims that cite a government report by name but never link to it. That gap between 'a report says' and 'here is the report' is where misinformation hides.

Sources

  • Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)

    TIGTA regularly audits IRS workforce management and personnel practices, but no specific published TIGTA report matching this precise claim about reassigning $100,000+ employees to $35,000 phone roles while maintaining full salaries has been identified in publicly available TIGTA reports as of early 2025.

  • IRS Personnel and Workforce Reports

    The IRS does have established procedures for reassigning employees to different roles, and federal civil service protections generally prevent immediate pay cuts when employees are reassigned to lower-graded positions, a practice known as 'grade retention' under federal HR rules.

  • U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Grade and Pay Retention

    Under federal law (5 U.S.C. 5362-5363), employees involuntarily placed in lower-graded positions may retain their grade and pay for up to two years, which is a standard federal HR practice that could explain the salary discrepancy described in the claim.

  • Government Executive / Federal News Network

    During DOGE-related IRS workforce restructuring in early 2025, reports emerged of IRS employees being reassigned to different functions, but specific figures of $100,000 employees moved to $35,000 phone roles with full salary retention have not been independently verified with a specific TIGTA report citation.

  • National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)

    The NTEU, which represents IRS employees, has documented workforce disruptions during 2025 restructuring efforts but has not specifically corroborated the exact salary figures cited in this claim in publicly available statements.

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