Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has moved on to examining the Internal Revenue Service, fuelling fears over access and the potential handling of highly sensitive data.
“My office is hearing that DOGE is now at the IRS. That means Musk’s henchmen are in a position to dig through a trove of data about every taxpayer in America,” the Democrat tweeted Thursday. “And if your refund is delayed, they could very well be the reason.”
Musk replied with two crying laughing emojis.
Wyden warned last week that Musk and DOGE – an advisory body tasked with slashing bureaucracy and trillions in federal spending – had launched a “full-scale authoritarian takeover” of the Treasury and urged the tech billionaire to “get your hands off our money and get the hell out.”
Democrats sounded alarms recently after DOGE gained access to a Treasury Department payment system that manages Social Security benefits and federal tax returns.
On Thursday, Gavin Kliger, a top DOGE aid, visited the District of Columbia’s IRS offices to examine the systems, sources told both CNN and the Washington Post.
According to The Post, Kliger has been working at the Office of Personnel Management which has been heavily involved in Musk’s work to slash government programs.
It was not immediately clear whether the DOGE staffer directly accessed any IRS systems, but a source told CNN it seemed “he’s just getting a lay of the land at the moment.”
The 25-year-old software engineer probed the purpose of each of the IRS’ business units, the risks they face and what it’s looking to deliver in the next 90 days, the source added.
Upon the visit, IRS employees received an email stating: “Anyone getting an inbound on a group of high-profile visitors to the IRS should have them send their query to the inbox. We’ve elevated this inquiry to [the] Treasury. We’re awaiting further instruction.”
Reuters also reported that, in the email, senior IRS executives were instructed to identify all “non-essential” contracts to be eliminated.
President Donald Trump said that while Musk’s department would turn its attention to the IRS, the agency wouldn’t be eliminated, a dream of libertarians within the Republican party. It is not immediately clear what DOGE is explicitly targeting at the IRS.
“The Internal Revenue Service will be looked at like everybody else,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “Just about everybody is going to be looked at.”
While on the campaign trail in June, Trump floated the idea of ending federal income tax. It was not clear whether the president also wanted to eliminate federal corporate income and payroll taxes – which raises about half of the nearly $5 trillion in revenue the government collects annually.
In October, Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that he was weighing the replacement of income tax with tariffs.
While speaking to House Republicans at his residence in Doral, Florida, last month, Trump said that “instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens.”
The Independent has contacted DOGE, the White House and the Treasury for more information.
