The IRS is walking back guidance on back pay for staffers a day after the agency furloughed almost half its employees and suggested they would receive retroactive paychecks, according to an email obtained by POLITICO.
“An earlier memo circulated on furlough guidance incorrectly stated the nature of the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 as it relates to compensation for non-pay and non-duty status,” the email to employees, sent Thursday, reads. “The Office of Management and Budget will provide further guidance on this issue, and you will be updated accordingly.”
The newest guidance contradicts the IRS’s initial guidance in its furlough decision letter, which is still posted on the agency’s website and includes a reminder that “employees must be compensated on the earliest date possible after the [government funding] lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates,” as per the 2019 law President Donald Trump signed.
The initial letter came a day after a White House memo suggested furloughed federal employees might not receive back pay.
The move will likely roil employees who have seen the federal workforce as a relatively stable career path. The Trump administration has spent much of the year unwinding the federal government, and in the process has terminated or offered deferred resignations to tens of thousands of people. The IRS itself has shed more than 26,000 workers this year.
Earlier this week, the Interior Department similarly reversed guidance on back pay, POLITICO reported.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. And the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers, declined to comment.