The IRS interim commissioner plans to resign after a data sharing agreement with the immigration authorities
The acting commissioner of the internal Revenue Service provides to resign following the agency’s data sharing agreement with the Ministry of Homeland Security to support the efforts of the Trump administration to expel undocumented immigrants, three familiar sources with ABC News said.
Melanie Krause is the third chief of the agency to resign this year; The commissioner confirmed by the Senate, Danny Werfel, resigned from his role on the day of the inauguration, less than two years after his five -year term.
A month later, the acting commissioner Doug O’Donnell, who spent nearly four decades at the IRS, retired in the midst of concerns about management by the agency’s Trump administration.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department also confirmed Krause’s plans to leave the agency in a statement in ABC News.
“Melanie Krause directed the IRS through an extraordinary period of change. While we focus on IT modernization and reorganize the agency to better serve the taxpayer, we are also breaking the data silos which, for too long, have been in the process of identifying waste, fraud and mistreatment and the drafting of criminals to justice. We believe that these objectives are essential to a more effective government and a country except said the spokesperson.
Krause did not respond to a request for comments from ABC News.
A sign for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seen outside its building on February 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images
Other senior agency officials plan to leave the agency following the new data sharing agreement and is concerned with its legality.
Some discovered its finalization, after weeks of negotiations, only after being reported by Fox News on Tuesday morning, sources told ABC News.
“The people of the IRS have a strong feeling of pride for the tax administration and the protection of the rights of taxpayers, and everything that is happening is not aligned [with that]”Said a source in ABC News.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, signed the agreement with the DHS on behalf of the IRS, according to the expurred copy of the agreement included in a court file.
Article 6103 of the federal tax code requires that IRS maintains individual information on taxpayers with certain limited exceptions, in particular with law enforcement organizations “for survey and prosecution of non -tax criminal laws” with the approval of a court, according to the agency’s website.
Current and former officials of the agency also fear that the new policy can have an impact on tax collections and discourage undocumented immigrant workers who pay taxes for various reasons.
The agency said it would continue to protect the confidentiality of taxpayers’s data under the new agreement.
