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taxes
Trump-Musk Plan to Gut IRS Denounced as 'Blatant Power Grab'
"These layoffs will significantly impair the agency's ability to answer the phones and provide good service to taxpayers and hamper the agency's ability to investigate wealthy and powerful tax cheats," said one advocate.
Mar 05, 2025
Following reporting that the Internal Revenue Service is preparing to cut as much as 50% of its workforce, advocates are sounding the alarm that those cuts would negatively impact regular Americans who pay taxes and diminish the agency's ability to audit wealthy tax evaders.
The plans to drastically reduce personnel at the IRS was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
A reduction in force of tens of thousands of workers would render the agency "dysfunctional," John Koskinen, a former IRS commissioner, toldThe Associated Press.
The planned staff reductions at the IRS are part of a larger targeting of the federal workforce by the Trump administration. Billionaire Elon Musk, who U.S. President Donald Trump has deputized to help oversee the slashing of federal personnel and programs, has been central to that effort.
The Times reported that the Department of Government Efficiency "has taken a keen interest in the IRS in recent weeks" and two representatives from DOGE have been working from the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. "They have pushed for access to agency databases, including, most recently, one that has information about the agency's contractors," per the Times.
Ian Gary, executive director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition, blasted the reported plans to reduce IRS staff by half.
“A fair, transparent, and well-funded tax system is vital to a functioning democratic society," said Gary in a statement on Tuesday. "These cuts are also likely to disproportionately affect recent investments and hiring in the tax agency that have greatly improved its capacity to audit wealthy tax cheats and unscrupulous corporations. At the same time, such drastic staffing cuts will affect service levels for ordinary Americans."
Gary also said that the planned cuts "represent an existential threat to the revenues needed to operate the federal government."
The agency that nearly every working American adult interacts with each year has already experienced workforce reductions. There were some 100,000 workers at the IRS as of mid-January, according to theTimes. However, more than 7,000 probationary IRS employees have already been laid off, and thousands more have taken Musk's offer to resign.
"Those cuts, as well as normal attrition, are expected to count toward the Trump administration's goal of halving the number of people who work at the IRS," per the Times.
The executive director of the group Americans For Tax Fairness, David Kass, also denounced the news of the potential cuts: "These layoffs will significantly impair the agency's ability to answer the phones and provide good service to taxpayers and hamper the agency's ability to investigate wealthy and powerful tax cheats."
Kass also called the move a "blatant power grab—led by the Trump administration and the world's wealthiest individual— to deliberately weaken the IRS to further enrich themselves and their billionaire allies."
It was already known that the Trump administration's next move is to carry out mass "reduction in force" plans across agencies.
Last week the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo to agency leaders giving them guidance on how to come up with "large-scale" reduction in force and reorganization plans that are due March 13. However, according to The Associated Press, "it is unclear whether the White House will approve the IRS' reorganization plan and over what period of time it would be implemented."
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Senate Democrats Say DOGE Has 'No Right to Hoover up Taxpayer Data' at IRS
Operatives of Elon Musk, warned Sen. Elizabeth Warren, "are attempting to access confidential tax information—tax returns, bank data, Social Security numbers—for millions of Americans."
Feb 17, 2025
As Americans prepare to file their taxes ahead of the April 15 deadline, two Democratic senators warned Monday that billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk's arrival at the Internal Revenue Service raises serious privacy concerns and could significantly impact the tens of millions of people who count on their tax refunds each year to pay bills, pad their emergency savings, and afford other essentials.
The Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), the advisory body created by President Donald Trump and headed by Musk, has set its sights on the IRS as it works to gut agencies across the federal government—with the data of millions of ordinary taxpayers now among the troves of personal information DOGE is trying to seize.
As The Washington Postreported, the IRS is considering a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to give DOGE employees access to agency systems and datasets including the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS).
The system allows a limited number of IRS employees to access IRS accounts of every individual taxpayer, business, and nonprofit in the country, including people's personal identification numbers and bank information, and enables them to change transaction data.
DOGE's "meddling with IRS systems in the middle of tax filing season could, inadvertently or otherwise, cause breakdowns that may delay the issuance of tax refunds indefinitely," said Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The MOU states that Gavin Kliger, a software engineer working with DOGE, should have access to the IDRS, enabling DOGE to "eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, and improve government performance to better serve the people."
According to the memo reviewed by the Post, Kliger—who sources said had not officially been granted the access mentioned in the MOU as of Sunday night—will be tasked with consulting on modernizing the IRS' systems.
Even though outside contractors are used for technical upgrades or fixes to a system widely recognized as "antiquated," the Post noted that it is "highly unusual" for a political appointee of partisan body like DOGE to obtain access to the IDRS.
"The information that the IRS has is incredibly personal," Nina Olson, who served as the agency's national taxpayer advocate for nearly two decades, told the newspaper. "Someone with access to it could use it and make it public in a way, or do something with it, or share it with someone else who shares it with someone else, and your rights get violated."
In their letter to acting IRS Commissioner Douglas O'Donnell, Warren and Wyden (D-Ore.) noted that the tax code has long prohibited "executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations."
"These prohibitions have long prevented political appointees in previous administrations from accessing the private tax records of hundreds of millions of Americans, and allowing DOGE officials sweeping access these systems may be in violation of these statutes," said Warren and Wyden, who serve as ranking members of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Senate Finance Committees, respectively. "Violations of these taxpayer privacy laws, including unauthorized access to or disclosure of tax returns and return information, can result in criminal penalties, including incarceration."
Without naming Trump, the lawmakers referenced Charles Littlejohn, the IRS contractor who was sentenced last year to five years in federal prison for leaking the president's tax returns to The New York Times after Trump refused to publicly disclose them.
"Until we fought to the Supreme Court and won, the president shielded his tax returns from the people," said the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee in a social media post. "Now, he's given yours to the richest man in the world."
Warren and Wyden wrote that "software engineers working for Musk seeking to gain access to tax return information have no right to hoover up taxpayer data and send that data back to any other part of the federal government and may be breaking the law if they are doing so."
In addition to seeking access to the personal financial data of millions of Americans, DOGE is reportedly preparing to oversee the firing of 10,000 probationary employees at the IRS.
"Any delay in refunds could be financially devastating to millions of Americans who plan their budgets around timely refunds every spring," said Warren and Wyden. "We demand that the IRS immediately clarify the extent to which DOGE team members may have inspected or be seeking to inspect the private tax return information of millions of Americans and whether taxpayer privacy laws are being enforced to prevent unauthorized disclosure and intrusions."
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Exposed: Republicans Trying to Kill Free 'Direct File' Program Funded by For-Profit Tax Prep Industry
"Direct File should be expanded, kept permanent, and be held up as a model for government programs enacted to help average Americans—not corporate America."
Jan 30, 2025
The popular, free Direct File program introduced by the Internal Revenue Service in 2024 is being expanded this tax season despite the objections of dozens of congressional Republicans—but an analysis released Thursday reveals why GOP lawmakers are so intent on ensuring the Trump administration ultimately eliminates the program and forces taxpayers to rely on services from private tax filing corporations.
The 29 Republicans who sent a letter to President Donald Trump in December asking him to end Direct File with a "day-one executive order" have received more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions over the course of their careers from "Big Tax Prep and their proxies," said the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen.
The companies that have donated to the lawmakers include Intuit and H&R Block, as well as the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights—a group of lobbying firms that work on behalf of the tax filing industry.
With Direct File offered to taxpayers in 25 new states starting this week—after being available in 12 states last year—Public Citizen revealed that in 2024, the industry and its lobbying firms contributed more than $700,000 to the Republican lawmakers who wrote the letter.
Lobbyists and lobbying firms contributed most of the money detailed in the report—more than $1.5 million of the total. The remaining money was donated by political action committees (PACs) for H&R Block, Intuit, and the lobbying firms.
"The new administration must stand up to greedy Big Tax Prep giants and their army of hired lobbyists by continuing to build on the popular Direct File program beyond this tax season."
U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), who spearheaded the letter claiming Direct File poses a "threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach," received the second-most campaign donations of any of the signatories.
The tax filing industry and lobbying firms have given Smith $224,350 over the course of his career, second only to Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), who received $242,256.
Both also received more money from tax filing interests in 2024 than any other lawmaker.
Public Citizen noted that 12 of the signatories represent five of the states with Direct File pilot programs in place last year.
"According to data from the Economic Security Project, a combined 15.2 million taxpayers in these states were eligible for the program in the first year," reads the report. "Had they all used the program, these taxpayers would have saved more than $2.4 billion in filing fees."
With the 12 lawmakers having taken more than $640,000 from "the Direct File opposition and their proxies throughout their career... these Republicans are putting the interests of their donors ahead of their constituents," said Public Citizen.
"Direct File is a commonsense government program that was overwhelmingly well-liked by the filers who used it during its 2024 pilot," said Susan Harley, managing director for Public Citizen's Congress Watch division. "Eligible filers in 25 states now have an option to directly e-file their taxes for free to the IRS. The new administration must stand up to greedy Big Tax Prep giants and their army of hired lobbyists by continuing to build on the popular Direct File program beyond this tax season."
According to the report, donations from the tax filing industry have particularly flowed toward Republicans who sit on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over the IRS and taxation.
"Together, these signers have received more than $1.3 million over their careers including more than $500,000 during the 2024 cycle," said Public Citizen. "These members account for nearly two-thirds of the Republican majority on the committee."
People in 25 states will be able to save hundreds of dollars by filing their taxes without paying a private company or giving a cut of their refund to Intuit or H&R Block, noted Public Citizen.
"These savings can provide some financial relief at a time when budgets are stretched thin," said the group. "Direct File should be expanded, kept permanent, and be held up as a model for government programs enacted to help average Americans—not corporate America."
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