The Internal Revenue Service is walking back an earlier promise to provide its furloughed workers backpay.
The tax agency had notified its employees on Wednesday that they would be “compensated on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends” in accordance with the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019. But that was apparently an overstep: The IRS corrected itself the following day, stating that it would defer to the direction of Russel Vought’s Office of Management and Budget.
“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 IRS posted on its X account Thursday. “OMB will provide further guidance on this issue, you will be updated accordingly.”
An IRS employee that spoke with Federal News Network said that the initial email was automatically deleted from staff email inboxes by Thursday.
Backpay for furloughed workers has been a point of contention throughout the eight-day government shutdown, despite the fact that it’s legally mandated. Donald Trump himself signed the bipartisan-supported law after the last government shutdown, which lasted a record 35 days from 2018 into 2019.
On Tuesday, OMB tested the waters with potentially flouting the law, circulating a draft legal opinion indicating that furloughed federal workers would no longer be guaranteed backpay. Instead, the agency announced that members of Congress would need to specifically address the backpay provisions in a stopgap spending bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who voted in favor of the 2019 law, told reporters Wednesday that it was his “understanding that the law is that they would be paid.”
“There is some other legal analysis that’s floating around. I haven’t yet had time to dig into and read that. But it has always been the case—that is, tradition and I think statutory law—that federal employees be paid,” Johnson said in a news conference. “And that’s my position. I think they should be. They should not be subjected to harm and financial dire straits.”
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