You Can Earn Up to $75,000 a Year Working From Home for the IRS — Here’s How

When you think about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), you might picture stodgy accountants sitting at a desk covered with reams of paper and calculators. But while many of the 90,000 people who work at the IRS are accountants, that’s only part of its workforce. The government agency hires contact representatives, call agents, computer specialists, attorneys and human resources specialists, among many other job titles, and about half of these jobs are IRS work from home jobs. 

Given the fact that the IRS says it will be hiring as many as 52,000 new employees by 2025 there’s never been a better time to apply for an IRS job. Read on to learn more about working for this important government agency.

For more ways to earn with work-from-home jobs, click here and here!

What IRS work from home jobs are available?

Although the IRS, like other organizations, shifted to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency is starting to pull back on remote-only positions. You might be hired for an in-office position that becomes hybrid or remote over time, Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s chief economist says.

“Few IRS jobs are fully remote, but some roles are telework-eligible. Those roles have the benefit of hybrid flexibility as well as high pay, job security and comprehensive benefits. So it’s no surprise that they are highly sought after by tax professionals seeking their next opportunity,” Pollak says.

The best place to find all of the open IRS positions is on the IRS’s jobs site, jobs.irs.gov. That site also has a link to the IRS hiring events page where you can read about and register for in-person and virtual IRS job fairs. The site also has an Identify Your Career Path quiz to help you find jobs that will best suit you. USAJobs.gov is another job repository for IRS as well as other government jobs, and there are plenty of postings on Indeed.com, LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter.com.

The IRS does a great job at highlighting and selling its job openings to various candidates. When you get to the site, you can choose how you’d like to enter it — as a student, veteran, person with a disability (Schedule A hiring) or within a larger pool. The IRS points out that disability candidates include anyone “with severe physical, psychiatric or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, or intellectual disability, psychiatric disorders, muscular or neurological disorders. Other less obvious disabilities are also subject to eligibility such as lupus, AIDS, diabetes or heart disease.”

Contact representative

There are many opportunities to choose from. For example, one of the jobs that you can do without an accounting degree is Contact Representative. Called “the face of the IRS to many citizens,” the job is handled either in person or over the phone, providing procedural and technical advice and explanations. The job requires you to handle basic customer service and answer questions related to basic IRS issues related to tax returns, bills and notices.

Administrative support

Another job category falls under the administrative support assistant banner. Although the title seems fancy, it’s simply an administrative assistant role. The job, which has a salary of between $46,696 and $75,111 per year asks candidates to handle files, type at least 40 words per minute with minimal mistakes and complete administrative tasks. Expect to be evaluated by IRS recruiters on your adaptability, conscientiousness, teamwork, customer service, honesty and interpersonal skills.

Entry level agent

Someone with a four-year degree and at least 30 semester hours of accounting coursework can join the IRS as an entry-level IRS agent. In this position, people work directly with customers and businesses, helping to figure out what their tax liabilities are. Coming in at the ground floor, the IRS provides classroom and on-the-job training on subjects such as tax law, fraud detection and research techniques. And, since you start out paired with an experienced agent, you can continue to learn as you go. Those who work the late shift or on weekends may get an extra bump in pay.

A day in the life with IRS work from home jobs

The IRS is a government agency, so working here will be a little more structured than what you might expect at a non-governmental job. While the IRS’s recruiting videos say that the agency respects work-life balance, if you’re scheduled to work on a project with someone else who is in the office from 9 until 5 you’ll have to do your work then.

Since security is extremely important when you are dealing with financial information such as Social Security numbers and income data, you should expect to learn how to log into a protected work server and be ready to safeguard your working environment and work computers. You’ll also need a high-speed internet connection and a dedicated telephone line. You’ll get training on how to do your job remotely as part of your IRS telework training and have access to technical support if you have a problem.

That said, as a government agency the work is definitely worth it. The government sets specific pay brackets for each job so you know at minimum how much you can expect to be paid. IRS jobs, like other government jobs, come with excellent benefits. These include childcare subsidies, leave shares, on-site health care, transportation subsidies and more.

The government also provides health insurance, paying about two-thirds of your premiums, life insurance and long-term healthcare policies. Most important: You can qualify for federal retirement benefits that include an annuity, Social Security, and a Thrift Savings plan (TSP), which is a 401(k)-like plan. “If you do contribute to the TSP, we’ll match your contributions dollar for dollar up to 3%, and 50 cents on the dollar for the next 2%,” according to recruitment materials.

One word of caution: A recent report by the National Taxpayer Advocate, an internal IRS organization found that it took an average of 134 days to hire someone new when they went directly through the IRS hiring hierarchy. Those who were hired indirectly waited more than 193 days to be onboarded, according to the report. You should also be ready to undergo a detailed background check including proving U.S. citizenship, income tax compliance check, criminal history and fingerprinting.

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For even more work-from-home jobs, click through the links below:

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