Erosion of I.R.S Puts Its Mission In Greater Peril

Audits stall as president tries to make agency more political

Author

Matt Davis
March 11, 2025

Hey, friends. For those of you who are new here, I read the top story in the New York Times every morning so that you don’t have to. If you were forwarded this, you can subscribe here. I’m also doing a five-minute video version of this, each morning at 9 a.m. if you’d like to follow me on LinkedIn (you can always watch the recording later).

Good morning, news!

Today’s lead story by Andrew Duehren is based on interviews with dozens of current and former IRS employees. The most damning quotes are at the end, from two fired IRS staff:

Ms. Burns, 58, had also worked in the large business and international division, in the Phoenix area, before she was laid off last month. She said she was close to completing an audit that would have generated a significant tax payment to the I.R.S. She’s not sure if her former colleagues will have the resources to finish it after the layoffs.

“I voted for Trump; I do like Trump,” she said. “I like what he did the last term in office and all of the things he stood for.”

“But now that he’s brought in Elon Musk,” it’s a mess, she said.

And this one:

“More broadly, Mrs. Musgrave has a lingering feeling that the layoffs directed by Mr. Musk’s team would create more government waste — not reduce it. Not only might Americans find it easier to avoid paying all of the taxes they owe, but all of the time and money the I.R.S. spent on hiring her and thousands of others were ultimately for nothing.

“I’m appalled my tax dollars were wasted on getting all those employees trained, and they didn’t even get the chance to get out of their probationary period,” she said.”

So there it is. The story chronicles how Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has fired thousands of employees during tax season from the government department designed to bring in taxes. It makes clear that Musk’s 25-year-old staffer, a software engineer named Gavin Kliger, has largely been in charge of the layoffs, and has worn a lovely little all-black uniform to do it.

In meetings, Mr. Kliger, who wears all-black clothing, has often been impatient, accusing officials of stonewalling him and disobeying White House executive orders when they raised legal concerns with his requests, according to people who have interacted with him. Mr. Kliger did not respond to a request for comment.

He sounds like a proper little Nazi, doesn’t he?

The story begins with the story of another laid-off IRS staffer who was in the middle of auditing a $3 billion international business and likely to land a significant payment for the IRS, as a result. Now she has been fired she doubts whether the business will ever be held liable for what sounds like considerable tax avoidance.

“As a result [of laying off 7,000 people] the IRS may struggle even more with its basic mission of collecting taxes. Work-intensive investigations into large businesses and rich Americans could decline, a drop in enforcement that would add to the deficit even as Elon Musk says his team is helping to narrow it.”

Here’s the staffer herself, Beth Crowell, who really does sound like someone you would want to helm a tax audit, frankly.

“We were going to work through these issues and have it done in an effective, professional and collaborative manner,” she said. “All of the momentum we had is gone. I’m not sure they’re going to be positioned and have the support they need to restructure and reconvene to overcome all of this.”

Mr. Trump put a newcomer, Billy Long, a former Republican congressman in charge of the IRS soon after his election. Mr. Long is an “unusual” choice, the Times notes with typical restraint.

“The choice of Mr. Long was unusual. He’d never run a large organization, and his only background in tax consisted of pitching small businessses on a fraud-riddled tax credit. And by deciding to replace Daniel Werfel, then the head of IRS, years before the end of his term in 2027, Mr. Trump was upending the norm that commissioners of the IRS stay in the role even as a new president comes into office.”

An IRS spokeswoman declined to comment on this story, which is troubling, really, in itself, and a Trump administration official said the administration is exploring different options for streamlining the office. “These changes are aimed at improving taxpayer customer service and ensuring a smooth and successful filing season,” they said.

There’s a political aspect to all this, of course.

As the agency responsible for taking money from Americans to fund the government, the I.R.S. has long been unpopular with the public. In that sense, it was a natural target for an antigovernment crusade, even if it could mean bringing in less tax revenue. Mr. Musk, Mr. Long and members of Mr. Trump’s staff have even raised the possibility of abolishing the I.R.S. altogether.

Right?

One of my favorite Bible quotes is when Jesus Christ (who I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s newsletter, albeit with an f-word in between his two names in response to the lead story about the spread of disease around the world) says this: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21).

The Tribute Money, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1610.

That quote is widely considered “a summary of the relationship between Christianity, secular government, and society,” Wikipedia notes. But it makes me consider my own relationship to taxes. And to Jesus F_____ Christ, of course.

Last year, we paid more than $100,000 in tax. I paid $10,000 to the city of New York in Manhattan Business Tax, which is a tax you pay in Manhattan just for running a business that brings in over a certain amount in revenue. As in, if I chose to live in Brooklyn, I could have avoided paying that money altogether. I feel that as a (reasonably) honest taxpayer, I’m contributing to society by rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s. I don’t want the IRS to reduce its staff because I want the IRS to go after people who aren’t paying their fair share. I don’t love that my taxes are going to support the federal government on its current mission, but even in Christ’s time, the government wasn’t popular. There’s an element of paying and collecting taxes which represents the upholding of a civilized society even when you disagree with the people in charge and that, I think, is the point of why this article is so worrying. Whether you voted for Trump or not, the question is whether he is dismantling the structures that make our society fair. That’s not something you can easily undo by electing a replacement, and it’s why I’m glad I’ve been reading the newspaper so that you don’t have to.

Please share this newsletter with anyone you think might benefit from reading it and thanks for being here with me to witness all of the news.

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and child.