Tax Season 2026 revealed major shifts inside the IRS—from staffing reductions to AI-driven enforcement and continuous monitoring. Explore what lenders should be watching for.

AI can surface data faster—but it can’t replace context, judgment, or trust. In today’s lending environment, the real advantage comes from combining intelligent automation with human expertise to uncover risk, interpret tax data, and make confident, well-informed decisions.

A new ruling could unlock COVID-era tax penalty refunds, but not everyone qualifies. A new ruling could unlock COVID-era tax penalty refunds, but not everyone qualifies. Tax Guard’s VP of Marketing, Dave Bohrman, shares key insights into what this means for taxpayers.

From IRS modernization and staffing constraints to AI-driven efficiency – lenders are navigating more noise than ever. Tax Guard’s VP of Marketing, Dave Bohrman, cuts through the clutter and offers key insights to help lenders navigate the funding environment in 2026.

On The Federal News Network’s The Federal Drive, our own Dave Bohrman sat down with Terry Gerton to discuss what the shutdown meant at both the IRS and SBA, why IRS data is critical for the lending process, and what lies ahead for small businesses and lenders.

The IRS is undergoing its biggest transformation in decades — and lenders are feeling the impact. From AI-driven fraud detection to targeted audits and modernization slowdowns, here are five key IRS shifts reshaping lending risk and what they mean for your portfolio.

In the first 200 days of Trump’s second term, the IRS has faced leadership turnover, budget cuts, and staffing reductions. Read more for our 5 takeaways from 2025 so far.

The probationary employees were going to bring “younger, new people into the organization that hopefully would have a longer shelf life or career,” said Hansen Rada, CEO of Tax Guard, a provider of IRS tax data services.

“I’ve seen numbers of 20%, I’ve seen numbers of 30%, I’ve seen numbers of 50%,” said Tax Guard CEO Hansen Rada. “It’s really difficult to tell what is true, and I don’t think anybody knows, because the proposal has been private, so there is definitely a giant question mark as to how strong the IRS will be going forward.”

“The Treasury put out a statement that if there were a shutdown, they were going to fund the IRS through April 30, with all of it 100% open, which means it would not cause a problem for the f iling season, but then after April 30, the IRS would go to zero,” said Tax Guard CEO Hansen Rada. “Based on the Treasury’s announcement yesterday, it looks like they would get through the filing season and then shut it all down.”

“There will be lending that will stop through the SBA,” says Hansen Rada, the co-founder and CEO of Tax Guard, which provides real-time tax data to lenders. “But I think the greatest impact will be a long tail, which is the IRS then having to catch up during tax season.”

Rachel Libowitz, Senior Tax Advisor, and Jason Peckham, Vice President of Resolutions, recently shared their insight with the International Factoring Association to provide an update on the current state of the Employee Retention Credit program.