IRS Chief Quits After DOGE and Trump Immigration Officials Rampage Through Agency
Andrew Harnik/AP photo
IRS Acting Commissioner Melanie Krause is the third person to have that role since the beginning of the year, and there soon will be a fourth. Krause is planning to quit, multiple media outlets reported Tuesday evening, after a tumultuous period of interference from Elon Musk’s DOGE and officials within President Donald Trump’s administration seeking to enact his immigration agenda.
Krause intends to accept the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, two sources told The Washington Post, and would leave the IRS on April 28, shortly after the tax filing deadline on April 15.
The Post’s reporting noted that the IRS had already laid off about 7,000 employees in April, with another round of layoffs announced earlier this month — this time with an intention to cut 20,000 jobs, nearly 25% of the agency’s employees.
Krause “felt unable to push back on moves the U.S. DOGE Service was forcing through the agency,” the Post’s sources said, “including dramatic staffing cuts, a technology infrastructure overhaul and long-term IRS priorities.”
One source said that Krause “no longer feels like she’s in a position where she can impact the decision-making that’s happening,” and believes that “some of the decisions that are being made now are things the IRS can never recover from.”
The Wall Street Journal shortly followed the Post’s report with its own article, again citing sources familiar with the internal agency discussions, and detailed the revolving door for top spots at the IRS:
Krause will become the third IRS chief to exit this year, and her replacement would be the agency’s fourth leader in four months. Danny Werfel, who had been nominated and confirmed to the job under former President Joe Biden, left on Inauguration Day. His successor, longtime agency official Douglas O’Donnell, exited in late February. President Trump has nominated Billy Long to run the IRS, but he hasn’t yet had a Senate confirmation hearing.
Other IRS executives, including Chief Financial Officer Teresa Hunter and Chief Privacy Officer Kathleen Walters, are leaving the government or planning to leave, the people familiar with the matter said. Mike Wetklow, the chief risk officer, is also leaving the IRS.
A major point of contention leading to Krause’s exit was an agreement signed on Monday between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem that would allow the IRS to share private taxpayer data with immigration officials to aid in deportations. IRS lawyers had analyzed this arrangement as one that “probably violates privacy law,” the Post reported, and is already part of a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration.
“For years, the IRS has been encouraging people living and working illegally in the U.S. to file tax returns and comply with the tax law, promising not to share that information with immigration authorities,” wrote the Journal’s Richard Rubin. “The idea was to encourage tax compliance.”
The Post‘s report included a similar analysis:
The possibility of such an agreement had raised alarms among current and former IRS officials, who said it was a privacy breach and contravened the tax agency’s longtime guarantee that taxpayers suspected of being in the country illegally wouldn’t have their information turned over to immigration enforcement. Undocumented workers’ wages are subject to the same tax withholding and reporting requirements that applies to other U.S. residents.
DHS officials previously suggested they’d ask the IRS for help locating 7 million people. There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to federal officials’ estimates.
Improper disclosure of tax information is punishable with prison time and hefty fines. Taxpayers whose privacy is violated are entitled to monetary compensation.
