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The fight over everyone’s private tax data, explained
Elon Musk’s group is pushing to access the IRS’ most sensitive information.
Joey Sendaydiego for Vox
Patrick Reis was the senior politics and ideas editor at Vox. He previously worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Politico, National Journal, and Seattle’s Real Change News. As a reporter and editor, he has worked on coverage of campaign politics, economic policy, the federal death penalty, climate change, financial regulation, and homelessness.
Welcome to The Logoff. Today I’m focusing on DOGE’s attempt to access taxpayer information via the IRS’s most sensitive records — a push that raises concerns both for the privacy of millions of people and the potential for abuse at the highest levels.
What’s the latest? The White House is pressing the IRS to grant a member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to the system that contains taxpayers’ records, personal identification numbers, and banking information, according to the Washington Post.
A group representing unionized workers, taxpayer advocates, and small businesses sued DOGE on Monday, asking a federal judge to block access.
Who normally has access to this data? Under other administrations, access to this data has largely been reserved for a select group of career employees. Political appointees, including IRS commissioners, are typically not allowed to view the data.
Why are critics worried?
- Privacy: The groups suing say that any mishandling of the records could expose tens of millions of people’s personal financial information.
- Weaponization of the IRS: Critics also contend that the information could be used for political vendettas, targeting opponents for audits or leaking private information about them.
What does the administration say? The White House claims DOGE needs access to IRS data to fight “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the tax payment system — a goal undercut by Trump’s freezing of IRS hiring, which experts say would hamper the agency’s ability to detect fraud.
What’s the big picture? The fight over the IRS is one of several high-stakes struggles over access to sensitive government data. The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration quit over the weekend after a fight over DOGE’s access to the agency’s data, and there is a similar fight playing out over access to the Treasury Department’s payment system.
And with that, it’s time to log off …
Well, that was technical and more than a little alarming, and it would be easy to finish this email and slip right back into the doomscroll. Don’t do it! Instead, I offer a 16-minute podcast on how insects have changed human culture. I hope you enjoy it. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.
