What happened
Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause is stepping down, along with several other top officials at the tax agency, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed a deal with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that forces the IRS to share protected taxpayer records with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to further President Donald Trump's deportation drive, news organizations said Tuesday.
Who said what
Bessent and Noem signed the deal Monday, even after "IRS lawyers had counseled" that the plan "probably violates privacy law," but Krause only learned of it when Treasury representatives "released it to Fox News," The Washington Post said.
Krause was once seen as "aligned with Elon Musk's" DOGE but had become "uncomfortable with the direction of the IRS under the Trump administration," The New York Times said. She is the third IRS chief to leave during Trump's first three months in office. Her predecessor, Doug O’Donnell, "retired rather than clash with DOGE and immigration enforcement officials" seeking "broad access to confidential personal taxpayer data," the Post said.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The administration argued that ICE can access tax data for anyone who committed the crime of defying a court order to leave the U.S. Using "immigrants' tax data against them should send chills down the spine of every U.S. taxpayer who disagrees with this administration," said Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen.
What next?
After years of IRS privacy guarantees, the data-sharing agreement will "discourage undocumented immigrants from paying taxes," Axios said, costing the government tens of billions of dollars a year in lost revenue and Social Security taxes.
-
Should David Szalay’s Flesh have won the Booker Prize?Talking Point The British-Hungarian author’s ‘hypnotic’ tale of masculinity, sex and power scooped this year’s literary award
-
Codeword: November 12, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
Sudoku hard: November 12, 2025The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
-
Trump pardons 2020 fake electors, other GOP alliesSpeed Read The president pardoned Rudy Giuliani and more who tried to overturn his 2020 election loss
-
Supreme Court to decide on mail-in ballot limitsSpeed Read The court will determine whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day
-
Democrats split as Senate votes to end shutdownSpeed Read The proposed deal does not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Democrats’ main demand
-
USDA orders states to ‘undo’ full SNAP paymentsSpeed Read The Trump administration is telling states not to pay full November food stamp benefits
-
Senate takes first step to end record shutdownSpeed Read Eight senators in the Democratic caucus voted with Republicans to advance legislation to reopen the government
-
Gregory Bovino: the officer leading Trump’s strong-arm immigration tacticsIn the Spotlight He has been referred to as the Border Patrol’s ‘commander-at-large’
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
