WASHINGTON — The layoffs of roughly 7,000 IRS probationary workers likely will mean the end of the agency’s plan to go after high-wealth tax dodgers and could spell disaster for revenue collections, experts say.

The majority of employees shown the door this week at the federal tax collector are newly hired workers focused on compliance, which includes ensuring that taxpayers are abiding by the tax code and paying delinquent debts, among other duties.

The IRS layoffs, one of the largest purges of probationary workers across the government, could also hurt customer service and tax return processing during tax season this year, the union representing Treasury Department employees warned Thursday.

The upheaval comes less than two months before the tax filing deadline and as the Department of Government Efficiency under Trump adviser Elon Musk seeks to shrink the size of the federal workforce in an effort to radically cut spending and restructure the government’s priorities.

Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told reporters Thursday that the layoffs at the IRS will disproportionately harm enforcement efforts.

“When you underpay and understaff the IRS, the agency doesn’t have the power or the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax evaders with their high-priced lawyers,” she said. “The result is, of course, a disaster for revenue.”

Congressional Republicans are trying to come up with how to pay for extending provisions of President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Penn Wharton Budget model estimates that permanently extending Trump’s tax cuts would increase deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade.