Chris Pilkerton, assistant secretary for investment security at the U.S. Treasury Department, is at the G20 summit in Asheville, North Carolina, and joins CBS News with more on what to expect.
Page A4From§Eachthe matinee edition — 1 September 2026
IRS audit revenue plunges after mass layoffs; Treasury official discusses economic goals at G20.
As it ran on the front
Just a second... I had this right here. Yeah — here it is, the watchdog report, the one about the audit revenue. Says it plunged. Following the layoffs, it says, plunged. I wrote 'plunged' down because that's the word the watchdog used, not me.
Now, the same stretch, more or less, I got this other page. Treasury official, G20 summit, talking about 'economic goals.' I keep circling that word, 'goals.' Wrote it three times in my notebook before I noticed I was doing it. Goals. Big word to keep writing down.…
…(cont) I tried something at home, just to get my head around it. I took the smoke detector off the wall — the one with the dead batteries — and I set it right next to a stack of unopened bills. Then I stood back and asked my nephew, what protects the house here? He pointed at the detector. I said, it doesn't have batteries. He didn't have an answer for that, and neither do I, not off this page anyway.
Because here's what's bothering me, and it's just a small thing: the agency that checks whether people paid what they owe — that's the smoke detector, more or less, for the goals. If nobody's checking, the goals are just numbers somebody said out loud at a summit. I'm not saying the goals aren't real. I wrote 'economic goals' right there in the notebook, no argument from me.
I keep coming back to the timing, though. Layoffs, then the plunge, then — goals. In that order. Not the other order. I checked it twice because I don't trust my own handwriting most days, but no, that's the order on the page.
So, excuse me, one more thing before I let you go — the watchdog report is dated after the layoffs, and the G20 remarks come after that. If the audits are down and nobody's left to check whether the money owed is the money collected, what exactly are these economic goals measuring?
“They fired the people who check whether rich guys' math adds up, then flew to a summit to talk about growth like the two things live in different universes. They do not. Watch whose audit letter never shows up in the mail this year.”
“This is simply responsible staffing reallocation at the IRS, nothing to see — did I say reallocation? I mean, workforce adjustments happen, and they are wholly unrelated to any Treasury talking points about economic goals, wholly unrelated, I want that on record.”
The receipts
IRS audits collected $3.5 billion less in fiscal 2025 as the agency shed thousands of auditors and other agency staffers.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.