IRS Limits Employee Telework Requests for "Hardship"

In December 2025, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) moved to close out employees' pending “hardship” telework requests, citing the return-to-office mandate. Under a memo reported by Federal News Network, employees are generally limited to five days of telework per calendar year; managers may approve up to 90 days as an interim measure for employees awaiting decisions on reasonable accommodation requests. The agency's Service-wide telework policy, IRM 6.800.2, has been removed from the Internal Revenue Manual. On June 29, 2026, NTEU sued the IRS, Treasury, and HHS over the failure to process telework reasonable accommodation requests, alleging a backlog many thousands of requests long.