Acting IRS Chief Out Over 'Unconscionable' Deal to Share Taxpayer Data With ICE
"The Trump administration's political efforts to use immigrants' tax data against them should send chills down the spine of every U.S. taxpayer who disagrees with this administration," said one watchdog.
The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is reportedly expected to resign over a new agreement that would allow the tax agency to give immigration authorities access to highly sensitive data to aid U.S. President Donald Trump's lawless mass deportation campaign.
Numerous outlets reported late Tuesday that Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause and other top agency officials intend to leave their positions imminently, news that comes in the heat of tax season. Krause is the third person to lead the IRS since the start of Trump's second term, and the president's pick to lead the agency, Billy Long, has yet to receive a Senate confirmation hearing.
Central to Krause's decision to leave her role was reportedly a deal between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who oversees the IRS, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Under the deal, a redacted version of which was disclosed in a Monday court filing, ICE officials "can ask the IRS for information about people who have been ordered to leave the United States or whom they are otherwise investigating," The New York Times reported. The newspaper characterized the agreement as "a fundamental departure from decades of practice at the tax collector, which has sought to keep information submitted by undocumented immigrants confidential."
"Undermining the legal protections for sensitive taxpayer information is dangerous, and Krause's resignation signals the severity of this unconscionable move by the Trump administration."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that Krause's impending resignation "highlights concerns about the ethics and legality of the deal." The Public Citizen Litigation Group is representing advocacy groups that are suing the Trump administration in an effort to prevent ICE from accessing taxpayer information.
"Our laws were intended to keep taxpayer data confidential," said Gilbert. "This backroom deal by Secretary Bessent and Secretary Noem, partly disclosed in a court filing, violates those laws. The Trump administration's political efforts to use immigrants' tax data against them should send chills down the spine of every U.S. taxpayer who disagrees with this administration. Undermining the legal protections for sensitive taxpayer information is dangerous, and Krause's resignation signals the severity of this unconscionable move by the Trump administration."
The Washington Post reported that the deal comes after Treasury Department officials "sought to circumvent IRS executives so immigration authorities could access private taxpayer information," efforts that "largely excluded Krause's input."
Krause found out about the deal between Bessent and Noem "after representatives from the Treasury Department released it to Fox News," according to the Post.
Trump immigration officials' push for sensitive data on millions of people has left undocumented immigrants fearful of filing taxes this year. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $97 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, with $59.4 billion of that total going to the federal government.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, warned over the weekend that "even though the Trump administration claims it's focused on undocumented immigrants, it's obvious that they do not care when they make mistakes and ruin the lives of legal residents and American citizens in the process."
"A repressive scheme on the scale of what they’re talking about at the IRS would lead to hundreds if not thousands of those horrific mistakes," said Wyden, "and the people who are disappeared as a result may never be returned to their families."
