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Trump Escalates 'Illegal' and 'Immoral' Push for IRS Data to Fuel Mass Deportations
"You'd be a fool to think Trump won't go after others he dislikes," warned Sen. Ron Wyden, "including American citizens."
Apr 06, 2025
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon slammed the Trump administration over the weekend in response to fresh reporting that the Department of Homeland Security has intensified its push for access to confidential data held by the Internal Revenue Service—part of a sweeping effort to target immigrant workers who pay into the U.S. tax system yet get little or nothing in return.
Wyden denounced the effort, which had the fingerprints of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, all over it.
"What Trump and Musk's henchmen are doing by weaponizing taxpayer data is illegal, this abuse of the immigrant community is a moral atrocity, and you'd be a fool to think Trump won't go after others he dislikes, including American citizens," said Wyden, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, on Saturday.
Last week, the White House admitted one of the men it has sent to a prison in El Salvador was detained and deported in schackles in "error." Despite the admitted mistake, and facing a lawsuit for his immediate return, the Trump administration says a federal court has no authority over the president to make such an order.
"Even though the Trump administration claims it's focused on undocumented immigrants, it's obvious that they do not care when they make mistakes and ruin the lives of legal residents and American citizens in the process," Wyden continued. "A repressive scheme on the scale of what they're talking about at the IRS would lead to hundreds if not thousands of those horrific mistakes, and the people who are disappeared as a result may never be returned to their families."
According to the Washington Post reporting on Saturday:
Federal immigration officials are seeking to locate up to 7 million people suspected of being in the United States unlawfully by accessing confidential tax data at the Internal Revenue Service, according to six people familiar with the request, a dramatic escalation in how the Trump administration aims to use the tax system to detain and deport immigrants.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security had previously sought the IRS’s help in finding 700,000 people who are subject to final removal orders, and they had asked the IRS to use closely guarded taxpayer data systems to provide names and addresses.
As the Post notes, it would be highly unusual, and quite possibly unlawful, for the IRS to share such confidential data. "Normally," the newspaper reports, "personal tax information—even an individual's name and address—is considered confidential and closely guarded within the IRS."
Wyden warned that those who violate the law by disclosing personal tax data face the risk of civil sanction or even prosecution.
"While Trump's sycophants and the DOGE boys may be a lost cause," Wyden said, "IRS personnel need to think long and hard about whether they want to be a part of an effort to round up innocent people and send them to be locked away in foreign torture prisons."
"I'm sure Trump has promised pardons to the people who will commit crimes in the process of abusing legally-protected taxpayer data, but violations of taxpayer privacy laws carry hefty civil penalties too, and Trump cannot pardon anybody out from under those," he said. "I'm going to demand answers from the acting IRS commissioner immediately about this outrageous abuse of the agency.”
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Trump Letting 'Wealthy Tax Cheats Off the Hook' With Mass IRS Firings
"Trump and Musk care far more about hamstringing the agency in charge of making sure their billionaire buddies pay their tax bills than they do about making tax season bearable for millions of taxpayers."
Feb 20, 2025
At the height of tax season, the chronically understaffed Internal Revenue Service is expected to begin firing more than 6,000 employees on Thursday as part of the Trump administration's large-scale and destructive assault on the federal civil service.
Government Executive reported that the terminations "are expected to affect probationary employees ranging from recent graduates to veterans to specialized auditors across all 50 states."
An unnamed IRS employee told the outlet that Thursday's firings are likely just the start.
"They want to keep cutting," the worker said.
The firings come days after one of billionaire Elon Musk's lieutenants reportedly gained access to a critical IRS system containing sensitive taxpayer data, raising widespread alarm. Musk has also taken aim at the agency's popular Direct File program.
On Wednesday, Trump's newly confirmed commerce secretary said the president's ultimate goal is to "abolish the Internal Revenue Service."
Elizabeth Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement that Trump and Musk are "gutting the IRS in the middle of tax filing season for one reason, and one reason alone: to let wealthy tax cheats off the hook."
"Trump and Musk care far more about hamstringing the agency in charge of making sure their billionaire buddies pay their tax bills than they do about making tax season bearable for millions of taxpayers," said Pancotti.
Groundwork noted that attacks on the IRS will likely have consequences that run directly counter to the stated objectives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
"Recent research found that for every $1 spent on tax enforcement for the wealthy, taxpayers get an average return of $26," Groundwork observed.
Biden-era investments in the IRS, which Republicans starved of funding for years, yielded significant revenue from wealthy individuals, as the agency had the resources necessary to ramp up audit rates for the rich.
In a letter to top Trump administration officials earlier this week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other senators warned that the mass IRS terminations and hiring freeze could cause a "tax refund trainwreck."
"It is nearly inevitable that this hiring freeze, compounded by layoffs and further reductions in staff mandated as a result of Elon Musk's unprecedented power grab will delay refunds and degrade taxpayer service," the senators wrote. "Millions of Americans plan their budgets around timely refunds every filing season. These reckless decisions on the part of Elon Musk and the Trump administration will likely cause serious financial hardship for people across the country."
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Emergency Suit Seeks to Block DOGE From Riffling Through Sensitive Taxpayer Data
"Allowing DOGE unfettered access to the sensitive data held by the IRS is a violation of both the rights of all taxpayers and their trust," said the head of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Feb 18, 2025
Another day, another lawsuit targeting the so-called Department of Government Efficiency's infiltration of the federal government. On Monday, four groups filed a complaint in federal court aimed at preventing DOGE from accessing sensitive taxpayer data at the Internal Revenue Service.
Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported that DOGE—advisory body created by U.S. President Donald Trump, who tapped billionaire Elon Musk to help lead—sought access to an IRS payment system that includes detailed financial data about every taxpayer, business, and nonprofit. Multiple outlets reported Monday that the IRS is preparing to grant that access for one DOGE lieutenant, software engineer Gavin Kliger, who arrived at the agency last week.
"On information and belief, as of February 17, IRS has decided to grant DOGE such access to return information," according to the complaint.
The suit was filed by the Center for Taxpayer Rights, an advocacy group; Main Street Alliance, a network of small business; the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), a labor union representing government workers; and Communications Workers of America (CWA), a labor union.
The complaint alleges that DOGE lacks statutory authority to have access to the sensitive information, and that "DOGE will also have access to tax records of Mr. Musk's business competitors, which are held by the IRS. No other business owner on the planet has access to this kind of information on his competitors, and for good reason."
The plaintiffs highlight that the Trump administration has expressed an interest in scrutinizing programs such as the child tax credit and also worry that DOGE's access to sensitive data will erode trust in a federal agency that the vast majority of working adult Americans interact with each year.
"The efficiency and effectiveness of our system is dependent upon taxpayers' trust that the information they voluntarily provide the IRS will be held confidential," said Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, in a Monday statement. "Allowing DOGE unfettered access to the sensitive data held by the IRS is a violation of both the rights of all taxpayers and their trust. We all need to ensure that protection and rights are not violated."
According to the complaint, the move violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Tax Reform Act, and the Privacy Act. The latter two laws were passed in the 1970s following Watergate, in response to former President Richard Nixon's attempts to collect tax information on political enemies, according to the Center for American Progress.
The complaint raises the specter of this chapter in American history: "This nation already once experienced a president who sought to collect tax information on his political allies and enemies in the White House for use for favor and punishment and, following the Watergate era, Congress clearly and unequivocally acted to protect the American people from these intrusions."
A former Trump aid from his first administration told The New York Times in 2022 that Trump had wanted to use the IRS to investigate his enemies, and six "Trump critics," including three officials in his first administration, told Reuters in December that they fear a malicious IRS audit.
The plaintiffs, who are requesting "a temporary restraining order to maintain the status quo until the court has an opportunity to more fully consider the illegality of the defendants' actions," are being co-represented in court by Democracy Forward, a litigation and advocacy nonprofit that has served as legal counsel in multiple lawsuits brought against the Trump administration.
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