DOGE Presses To Check Federal Benefits Payments Against IRS Tax Records

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DOGE Presses To Check Federal Benefits Payments Against IRS Tax Records 

Washington Post, DOGE Presses to Check Federal Benefits Payments Against IRS Tax Records:

Officials with Elon Musk’s group say they want to search for fraud. Privacy law bars the IRS from disclosing tax information to other parts of the government.

Officials from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service have expressed interest in using personal tax records to check federal benefits payments for fraud, which would mobilize the IRS to drive the Trump administration’s campaign to cut government spending, according to three people familiar with the situation and records obtained by The Washington Post.

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Trump Wants to Use the IRS to Track Down Immigrants. They May Stop Paying Taxes

The Bulwark: “Immigrants in this country illegally paid nearly $100 billion in taxes in 2022, according to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic policy. But that source of government revenue may soon taper off as the Trump administration pushes the Internal Revenue Service to help it accelerate its program of mass deportations. 

The Washington Post reported Friday that the IRS rejected a request from Homeland Security to reveal the addresses of 700,000 people the agency suspects of being undocumented, an action that could violate taxpayer privacy laws. 

But the Post went on to report the new acting IRS commissioner Melanie Krause is (surprise) more amenable to complying with the request to turn over the taxpayer data of immigrants. The result, experts say, is not just that tax data will be morphed into a cudgel for the immigration fights. 

People are also now becoming too scared to file their taxes. One immigration lawyer told me they suspect the number of people forgoing those filings will only rise as the Washington Post report hits Spanish-language media. 

Tax professionals and immigration advocates in areas with large immigrant populations who spoke to The Bulwark said they are already feeling the effects. And it’s not just tax filings—it’s the shriveling of small businesses with ties to the community. 

In Nevada, which has the third-highest rate among states of mixed-status families—where at least one family member is undocumented—an employee at Toro Taxes in Las Vegas, where their clientele is 95 percent Latino, said overall business has dropped a stunning 25 percent from last year…”