During 2025 the IRS dropped from 103,000 employees down to around 76,000 personnel or roughly a 25% cut. Interestingly, we have seen an uptick in hiring in 2026 (with the Treasury Department authorizing 8,000 new hires) but not nearly enough to make up for the damage this is still inflicting on Accounts Payable and Tax Departments around the country. That's because IRS Tax support has been gutted, regulations aren’t being written on a timely basis - and that is making it really hard on you and your peers struggling to respond to the slew of new information reporting laws.

New December 2026 final Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC were recently published. Significant changes were made to each form due to last summer's big tax bill. To that end, an initial draft of changes to these forms was released last fall. In April of this year new drafts of the 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC were released that superseded those earlier versions. Finally, late this spring those second drafts were finalized and dated to December 2026.

On June 9th 2026 the Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued it's latest findings on the state of the IRS workforce following the job cuts instituted since the third week of January 2025. All told, the IRS has taken a net cut of 28,000 personnel (after factoring in the 2,000 hires that have occurred so far in 2026) or 28% of its late 2024 workforce. Interestingly, this puts the IRS at roughly the same size it was in the 2019-2021 time period. However, the cuts fell much more heavily on certain areas of the IRS than others. 

Artificial intelligence is changing how Accounts Payable and Tax Departments manage vendor on-boarding, W-9 collection, TIN validation, payment classification, backup withholding, and Forms 1099 reporting. Organizations already use AI tools inside ERP systems, AP automation platforms, OCR solutions, procurement workflows, and vendor management systems. However, many AP and Tax Departments struggle to determine where AI improves compliance, versus where AI creates additional legal and operational risk. That's because using AI is a far from simple task.

Last month (January of 2026), the National Taxpayer Advocate (Erin Collins) issued her annual report to Congress on the IRS' performance in key metrics like tax support. Unfortunately, there was not much good news.