Feb. 17 (UPI) — The Elon Musk-lead Department of Government Efficiency is seeking unprecedented access to an IRS system, which holds a slew of highly private tax information on millions of American citizens amid tax season.
DOGE software engineer Gavin Kliger is likely to be granted “imminent” access to the system, The Washington Post, ABC News and CNN reported.
Kliger, who will serve as a senior adviser to Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell, is expected to be based in the Internal Revenue Service for at least 120 days to provide “engineering assistance and IT modernization consulting,” according to sources.
“Waste, fraud and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told reporters Sunday evening.
Known as the Integrated Data Retrieval System, the system is utilized by IRS employees to review individual tax information, issue notices and to update a taxpayer’s personal file.
On Thursday, a Musk staffer reportedly arrived at the IRS office to seek meetings with various offices on how the agency collects and manages its data and how its internal units do business, but has reportedly not been back.
“DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on,” Fields added.
More than a dozen state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit against Musk’s DOGE citing its “reckless” behavior. Musk, the world’s richest man with billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded government contracts, claimed that DOGE has been “maximally transparent.”
The IRS is preparing to lay off up to 10,000 probationary employees as early as this week. It comes as nearly 150 million U.S. taxpayers prepare to file returns by the April 15 deadline.
“People who share their most sensitive information with the federal government do so under the understanding that not only will it be used legally, but also handled securely and in ways that minimize risks like identity theft and personal invasion, which this reporting brings into serious question,” Elizabeth Laird, a former state privacy officer now with the Center for Democracy and Technology, told ABC.
Meanwhile, the IRS is considering a memorandum of understanding to grant DOGE officials access to a number of antiquated IRS systems to include the IDRS.
The authorized employee-only data includes access to Social Security numbers, numbers, bank account information, addresses, tax returns and other personally identifiable data like pending adoptions.
“IDRS users are authorized to access only those accounts required to accomplish their official duties,” according to IRS policy.
Several current and former U.S. government workers, their unions and privacy advocates recently filed a lawsuit asking the courts to stop the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management from disclosing additional private information on millions of Americans.
“The information that the IRS has is incredibly personal,” Nina Olson, IRS commissioner from 2001 to 2019, told WAPO. “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.”
IRS policy prevents its employees from accessing their own files or those of spouses, friends, celebrities, relatives, coworkers or anyone with a business or otherwise personal relationship.
“The taxpayer must be protected from unauthorized disclosure of information concerning his/her account and unauthorized changes to it,” the IRS says in its employee manual. “The IDRS user employee must be protected from other personnel using his/her identification to access or make changes to an account.”
A Manhattan district judge has temporarily blocked DOGE access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s system, while a separate judge has granted DOGE access to data at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in addition to the U.S. Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.
