Executive Hiring Freeze and the IRS

As we all know, yesterday, President Trump issued a number of executive orders. Some go beyond what the president can do unilaterally, but some are within the president's authority.

One that is within his authority? His announced hiring freeze. In short, there will be no executive branch civilian hiring for the next, well, 89 days now.

Only there's an exception: the IRS. Rather than 90 days, Trump has frozen IRS hiring indefinitely, until the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of OMB, and noted dilettante non-expert Elon Musk agree that it's in the national interest.

This has real consequences for the nonprofit world: the EO unit is in charge both of approving and, largely, regulating tax-exempt organizations. This hiring freeze will make that oversight and approval significantly more difficult, which, in turn, will likely lead to more bad actors entering the nonprofit tax-exempt sector.

We'll all, naturally, have to keep an eye on this space.

Samuel D. Brunson