The current acting head of the Internal Revenue Service intends to resign following her disagreement with the decision to disclose tax information regarding illegal immigrants to federal law enforcement agencies.
Commissioner Melanie Krause will be the third leader of the IRS to depart from the agency this year. The agency has experienced significant turmoil as left-leaning ideologues have chosen to adhere to their political beliefs rather than uphold their commitment to function as impartial government employees.
On Monday, the IRS, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, finalized a pact that permits the sharing of taxpayer data with federal immigration authorities to aid in the identification of undocumented immigrants.
As reported by the Washington Post, officials from the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, had largely marginalized Krause in recent times as they advocated for granting immigration authorities access to confidential taxpayer information, likely due to their awareness of her opposition to the agreement.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem executed the data-sharing agreement, notwithstanding cautions from IRS attorneys indicating that the arrangement probably contravened federal privacy regulations, according to the report.
A Treasury spokesperson stated in an emailed statement confirming her resignation, “Melanie Krause has been guiding the IRS through a period of remarkable transformation.”
Without referencing the data agreement, the spokesperson further indicated that the agency was “in the process of dismantling data silos that have long obstructed the identification of waste, fraud, and abuse, as well as the pursuit of justice against criminals.”
Krause’s predecessor, Doug O’Donnell, resigned as acting commissioner after refusing to endorse a similar data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security in February. The most recent Senate-confirmed IRS commissioner, Danny Werfel, left his position on the first day of President Donald Trump’s administration.
According to a source familiar with her decision, Krause has opted to apply for a deferred resignation program currently available through the IRS. The source, who requested anonymity, indicated that her choice to resign was partly motivated by apprehensions regarding the recently finalized data-sharing agreement, as reported by Reuters.
On Friday, the IRS commenced extensive workforce reductions, disbanding its civil rights office and initiating mass layoffs that could result in the elimination of up to 25% of its personnel.
The reductions are part of a larger reform of the federal workforce, which has already led to the elimination of over 200,000 jobs. President Donald Trump has appointed billionaire Elon Musk to spearhead the initiative aimed at restructuring and optimizing the federal government through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team.
Earlier this month, Musk informed Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz that the “magic money computers” within the U.S. government are producing payments “out of thin air,” leaving legislators in the dark regarding federal expenditures.
During his appearance on Cruz’s podcast, Musk disclosed that there are 14 such systems operating within the U.S. Treasury and other agencies, transferring substantial amounts without the requisite documentation to substantiate the payments.
Musk asserted that in departments where one of these systems is located, the reported expenditures could be inaccurate by as much as 5 percent of the budget when submitted to Congress, while Cruz indicated that these erroneous payments could potentially amount to “trillions” of dollars.
“Most of them are at Treasury,” Musk remarked regarding the computers identified by his U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, “but there are some at [Health and Human Services], one or two at State, and several at [the Department of Defense].”
“I believe we have now identified 14 magic money computers. They simply generate money from nothing,” he informed the Texas Republican senator.
Elaborating on DOGE’s findings, the unconventional entrepreneur clarified that the existence of these computers hinders the Treasury Department from fully updating lawmakers about the federal government’s overall spending.
“You might assume that government computers all interact with one another, synchronize, and accurately determine where funds are allocated, making the figures you see as a senator the actual ones. They are not,” he stated.