LONDON, Facebook (facebook.com) Feb 5 (Reuters) – Jewellery maker Pandora on Wednesday said additional U.S. A 10% tariff on imports to the U.S. China imposed by U.S. Pandora had been anticipating tariffs and working to limit the amount of imports to the U.S., its biggest market, from China, chief financial officer Anders Boyer told analysts on a fourth-quarter results call on Wednesday. Thailand would have an annual impact of 350 million to 400 million Danish crowns ($48.86 million to $55.84 million), he said. President Donald Trump have had a limited impact on the company, which makes its charm bracelets and other products at two factories it owns and operates in Thailand. He said the impact of the additional tariffs would be quite limited at around 15 million Danish crowns ($2.09 million) per year. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on a wide range of countries, and Boyer outlined Pandora’s scenario in case of tariffs on Thailand, currently its only production hub. Pandora imports items like displays, signs, jewellery boxes, shopping bags and store furniture from China.

Workers at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are said to be completely ‘paralyzed’ in the middle of tax season as chaos reigns supreme following the arrival of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Stunned staffers say his mission was to seize control of the IRS’s tax administration systems. Kliger marched into the IRS headquarters in Washington DC without so much as a security escort. They just randomly drop by people’s offices, demanding access to systems; they’re bullying us and there’s no discipline in what they are doing, which really worries me,’ one IRS employee said during a hushed phone call with CNN. It all began quietly on a gray morning in mid-February when Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old tech wiz who was seemingly plucked straight from a Silicon Valley coding bootcamp. Within minutes, Kliger was reportedly demanding access to databases holding the sensitive financial data of millions of American taxpayers. The IRS had about 100,000 workers when Trump took office, meaning up to 25,000 are set to lose their jobs. The agency has been thrown into turmoil with inside sources saying the future of America’s tax collection itself is teetering on the edge of collapse. The 20% to 25% target includes the roughly 5,000 IRS employees who took a buyout last month and potentially 7,000 probationary workers who were fired, though court rulings could lead to the reinstatement of probationary staff, the person said. The tax-collecting agency that has long been a target for Republicans, is planning to eliminate 20% to 25% of its workforce by May 15, according to a person briefed on the agency’s plans.

So, we are scrambling to figure out: Does Sam have that authority?

That data is protected under some of the strictest confidentiality laws in the federal government. More than 110 taxpayer assistance offices are set to close, leaving vast swaths of the country without in-person help during the busiest tax season of the year. Corcos was there to trim the fat off the IRS with ‘delete’ quickly becoming his favorite word. He just walked in like he owned the place as if decades of taxpayer trust, laws, and protections didn’t matter,’ a veteran IRS manager recalled. Did Treasury give them that authority? Staffers say he looked to terminate almost all IRS programs funded for the current fiscal year – programs specifically designed to modernize the tax filing process and improve customer service for millions of Americans. As the DOGE operatives dug in, the casualties began to mount. An atmosphere of despair has now taken hold within the walls of IRS offices. By March, thousands of IRS employees had already been fired – everyone from from auditors to customer service reps – as DOGE pushed a sweeping plan to eliminate nearly 20% of the workforce before the May 15 deadline. So, we are scrambling to figure out: Does Sam have that authority? Does Gavin have that authority? They’ll come in and say we’re going to delete that initiative – ‘delete’ is one of their favorite terms,’ an IRS employee said. Kliger was soon joined by Sam Corcos, a 36-year-old entrepreneur whose past achievements include designing diet apps.

It’s now routine to see people crying in the office,’ said one union leader outside Washington. Veteran tax experts are sounding the alarm about what they see as a deliberate gutting of the IRS, with profound consequences for the entire US government. His acting successor retired mere weeks later, and Trump’s nominee, former GOP Congressman Billy Long, still awaits Senate confirmation. You’ve got a lot of new blood getting fired, that’s supposed to be the future of the workforce,’ Olson said to CNN. The IRS leadership is itself in also in freefall. Then you’ve got the most skilled people, at the height of their institutional knowledge, leaving through retirement. In many cases, those long wait times ended with a courtesy disconnect,’ an IRS employee lamented. With processing returns and issuing refunds continuing on autopilot for now the real danger lies just beyond in the near future with crippling delays, skyrocketing customer service wait times, and a tax system more vulnerable to fraud and abuse. The average phone wait time, which had been brought down from 28 minutes in 2022 to just three minutes last year, will likely spiral back to pre-reform chaos. After Biden-appointed commissioner Danny Werfel resigned on Inauguration Day, without waiting for the end of his five-year term, chaos reigned. Melanie Krause, now acting head of the agency, has only three-and-a-half years of IRS experience under her belt. The IRS’s once-improving customer service stats are set to reverse as a result of the cut. Elon Musk and his son son X follow President Trump and board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base on Friday in Maryland.