Telework Decreased After the Return to In-Person Work Directive, but the IRS Will Face Challenges Monitoring Compliance

Report Information

Summary

As of May 2025, significantly fewer IRS employees reported teleworking. Employees reporting any use of telework declined from 65 percent to 25 percent between the pay periods ending March 8 (prior to the IRS’s return to in-person work) and May 3, 2025. IRS Employees Who Teleworked Decreased by 40 Percent From March 9 to May 3, 2025, about 70,000 IRS employees reported approximately 2 million daily time charges for in-person work, i.e., an employee would have 40 daily time charges if they worked in-office 5 days per week during this review period. Most IRS employees (96 percent) were assigned to a building with access card data. Eighty-nine percent of these daily time charges matched building access card data. However, about 11 percent of daily time charges did not have corresponding access card data to support in-person work. According to IRS officials, there are several reasons why an employee may have reported in-person work but there was no corresponding access card data. These reasons include miscoded time charges or card issues. The IRS completed its first high-level review of telework use in November 2025. The review used data from the fourth quarter (July 1 to September 30) of Fiscal Year 2025. The IRS found that the compliance rate for in-person work averaged 91 percent. As of January 2026, the IRS said that the draft guidance for its telework review process is pending approval. We encountered numerous challenges reviewing IRS compliance with the Return to In-Person Work directive. For example, we did not verify whether employees worked in-person for the full day because not every office requires employees to badge in and out upon arrival and departure. We also were unable to test in-person work for employees assigned to buildings without access card data. The IRS may also experience some of the same challenges as it monitors telework use. We describe the challenges the IRS will face in this report.