It would likely contribute to a longer-term trend at the agency of diminished audit rates, minimal tax enforcement for the most sophisticated taxpayers, and the use of outdated technologies that’s been going on for decades.

Cutting IRS staffing in half over the next 10 months would mean less help and longer waits for many US taxpayers and increase the risk that wealthy tax cheats escape paying what they owe.It also would leave the Internal Revenue Service with its smallest workforce since at least the 1960s,