A former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service has warned that the Trump administration is weaponizing the agency and “priding itself on revenge.”
John Koskinen, who held the role of IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, has sounded the alarm as the agency is considering revoking Harvard University’s tax-exempt status following the public fallout with President Donald Trump, and has agreed it will share undocumented immigrants’ taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security.
The IRS has also been gutted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the speed of which could render the next tax season “a disaster,” Koskinen, an Obama appointee who is now retired, told Mother Jones.
“This feels more like a total frontal attack,” Koskinen said. “And not only the budget—it’s the attempt to get access to protected data. And from the president suggesting that Harvard’s tax-exempt status ought to be reviewed, it’s just a small step to start ordering audits, even though that’s illegal, and we start moving back toward the Nixon ‘enemies list.’”
“This is an administration priding itself on revenge, and the FBI director and the Department of Justice people are out there saying, in effect, ‘We’re going to get our opponents,’” Koskinen added when asked whether he believes Trump officials will succeed in making the IRS a “tool of his retribution.”
Thousands of IRS employees were let go as the agency was gearing up for the peak of the tax season.
About 22,000 IRS employees have also offered to resign, according to theNew York Times, on top of the 7,000 probationary staffers who were already laid off. Those firings have been contested in court, but if they go ahead, the IRS will have lost about a third of the workforce this year, the newspaper reported last week.
“I am confident that includes a significant number of very experienced managers and executives,” Koskinen said. “Over 30 percent of the IRS has always been eligible for retirement, but they don’t retire, because they’re committed to the mission. When, literally overnight, you lose that many people, you’re losing leadership. You’re losing guidance and mentoring. You really are disabling the IRS.”
He added that the IRS begins preparations for the next tax season in June or July. “There’s a tremendous amount of reprogramming that has to go on,” he said.
There has been turmoil at the agency since Trump took office. The Trump administration has already gone through three IRS commissioners after a spate of resignations and firings.
Melanie Krause resigned earlier this month after she had only learned of the deal with Homeland Security on Fox News. She was in the role for a little over a month after her predecessor Doug O’Donnell retired in the face of Musk’s so-called DOGE operations at the agency, with looming pressure from immigration enforcement officials seeking broad access to taxpayer data.
Krause was replaced by IRS agent Gary Shapley, who was then fired by Trump after three days. Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender has now been selected to take on the role.
