Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause has quit the agency following a decision by the Trump administration to share IRS filings with the Department of Homeland Security. President Donald Trump hopes to use this private data as part of his ongoing efforts to purge migrants from the United States.
Sources inside the administration told the Washington Post that Krause only became aware of the agreement after it was reported on Fox News, as she had been cut out of the process.
Krause is the third person to lead and quit the IRS since Trump was sworn in, reflecting the chaos and upheaval caused by his actions and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has led the campaign to infiltrate key government agencies.
The Post reported on Tuesday that the data-sharing plan has “raised alarms among current and former IRS officials,” who have noted that it is a violation of privacy. IRS lawyers have reportedly told the administration that such an agreement violates federal law—such violations have been a hallmark of DOGE’s actions over the past few months.
“The resignation of acting Commissioner Krause as a result of a decision to share information with immigration enforcement officials highlights concerns about the ethics and legality of the deal,” Lisa Gilbert, co-president of advocacy group Public Citizen said in a statement.
She added, “Our laws were intended to keep taxpayer data confidential. This backroom deal by Secretary [Scott] Bessent and Secretary [Kristi] 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.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
DOGE’s actions, which have been under the control of multibillionaire Trump donor Musk and authorized by Trump, have been unpopular with the public. A March poll from Quinnipiac University found that 54% of voters believe DOGE is harming the country. The same poll showed that 60% of voters disapprove of how Musk and DOGE have treated federal workers, who have been pressured, publicly humiliated, and fired for extremely specious reasons.
While Trump and Musk are converting the nation’s tax collection agency into another arm of Trump’s efforts to attack migrants, the agency’s core mission is being hobbled.
The IRS is forecast to lose over $500 billion in revenue over the next filing season because firings have forced the agency to drop investigations of wealthy tax cheats. Those individuals had been subject to scrutiny under the Biden administration, who funded investigations via the Inflation Reduction Act. Under Trump, that has been reversed. Simultaneously Trump has sought tax cuts for those wealthy individuals, including figures like Musk.
Individual taxpayers are also being left out in the cold. The cutbacks at the IRS have led to fewer resources, like taxpayer assistance centers, available to individual filers.
Unable to build a wall in his first administration, Trump is now converting the IRS into another front in his war against immigration, and the fallout is hurting all of America.
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