Senate Republicans open to DOGE access to IRS but urge guardrails

Senate Republicans on Tuesday said they are open to the idea of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accessing the IRS’s sensitive taxpayer information, as long as there are guardrails in place.

Reports emerged over the weekend that a member of Musk’s team at DOGE was attempting to access that information — which includes Social Security numbers, tax returns and banking information — as his team trains their government-cutting focus on another entity.

But Senate Republicans on Tuesday said that while some of them have concerns, the push to streamline and scrutinize an agency the GOP has been critical of is worth it.

“How many employees are there at the IRS?” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, pointing to the hiring of thousands of employees via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). “There are thousands of employees at the IRS that already have access to our tax data. Does that concern you? I mean someone’s got to have access to them.”

“Mr. Musk has a top secret security clearance and he’s been authorized by the president,” Kennedy continued. “It’s against the law to divulge that information and you can be prosecuted severely, whether it’s Mr. Musk or a normal rank-and-file IRS employee.”

The new push at the IRS comes amid a spate of firings and layoffs at various departments and agencies as part of their ongoing push to downsize the scope of the federal government. DOGE has specifically focused on the Treasury Department as Musk’s lieutenants attempt to take a deeper look at outgoing payments across the government.

Multiple Republicans were quick to note the potential concerns on the privacy front. However, those worries are taking a back seat for now, with members pointing specifically to “antiquated” technology and systems used at the IRS that could use a face-lift in the near-term.

“I think there certainly are concerns when it comes to the privacy of personal information,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

“I don’t think it’s unusual that a White House or an administration — these are all government records — that they’re going to have access to these types of records, and I do know that the goal in all this, obviously, is to find ways to do things better and more efficiently and I know for sure at the IRS that some of their systems are incredibly antiquated,” Thune continued.

“At the end of the day, you want to save money, you want to bring greater efficiency, hopefully, to the use of technology to a lot of these antiquated ways of doing business in the federal government, and I think most of us support that objective.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), another member of GOP leadership, added that members were still “trying to find out what’s fact and fiction” in the whole situation, but echoed the majority leader’s point.

“It’s very different to be able to look at it and say, ‘Are we tracking people that are dead?’” Lankford said. “The inefficiencies in the systems in [the] IRS have been legendary for the 15 years I’ve been around this place. All I hear is legacy hardware and software.”

The Washington Post first reported the attempt by DOGE to gain access to the sensitive data.

The IRS has been a part of a game of political football in recent years after the Biden administration tried to beef up enforcement capabilities through the IRA. Republicans have tried to claw back much of that funding.

President Trump has also been a vocal IRS opponent after being the subject of personal audits conducted by the agency. He also found himself at the center of one of the most brazen leaks in IRS history after a contractor released one of his tax returns. Charles Littlejohn was eventually sentenced to five years in prison for leaking the information.

Senate Republicans agreed that they are not opposed to DOGE getting IRS access, but that it must color within the lines, and that leaking personal information remains a no-go zone.

“As special government employees or however they’re designated … they need to follow whatever the standard procedures are,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “Whatever they’re cleared to … they should follow whatever that is. I assume that they are."

“That’d be a big problem if that happened,” Hawley said about a possible leak. “I’m sure that they don’t want that to happen, so whatever the normal processes, whatever the clearance levels are, they should follow those to the letter and that’ll be fine. The problem would be if that doesn’t happen.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) also noted that she is under the impression that those at DOGE who could get this information have IRS backgrounds and that it “wouldn’t be unusual for them to get this data.”

“But there are concerns about privacy data that I’m hearing from people,” she said.

“I’m not raising the red flag here,” she added. “I think it will be done properly.”

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