Jason Charles had just finished training with the IRS. He says more than two dozen employees were laid off from his office.
HOUSTON — As he waited for an official termination letter to arrive at his front door, Jason Charles shared with KHOU 11 News the toll the last 48 hours have taken on him.
“I can’t believe this is happening. It happened so fast. Like I said, I was just in training. I waited four months to go to training just to be fired,” he said.
Charles is one of the 6,000-plus federal employees who worked for the Internal Revenue Service and were fired this week as part of mass layoffs happening under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The majority of those workers were probationary workers who had been employed for less than a year.
Charles said it took him over a year to get his dream job as a tax exempt officer dealing with nonprofit organizations and compliance.
“I wanted to serve the people,” he said.
Despite the recent news, he held out hope that his job would be spared.
But still, his pride and passion were taken away.
“I was so excited to learn the job. I was telling my management I was going to be the best, they can count on me,” he said. “I thought corporate America was like this, not the government. I thought the government takes care of their people.”
He said he chose to speak out after feeling like he wasn’t being heard.
“This was the only way I had a voice. I can’t go to Washington and go into the Oval Office. I can’t contact my congressman, he’s too busy. I tried to reach out … this is the only way I could get people to hear what happened,” Charles said.
According to a statement sent to KHOU 11 News, the National Treasury Employees’ Union representing the Houston area said it believes more than 200 people working for the IRS offices in Houston have been fired this week.
The layoffs are happening in the heart of tax season.
“Every department has a probationary employee. Every department will be impacted. I don’t know how severely, but people will start seeing the impacts soon,” Charles said.
Charles thinks there will be a ripple effect and has a message for the president: “Let us work. Let us do what they employed us to do, what we took our oath to do.”