In an unprecedented move, The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has requested access to a system maintained by the US’ Federal Tax Agency – Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
containing financial data of the millions of taxpaying American Citizens.
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The DOGE, a temporary contracted organization is the brainchild of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Donald Trump formed with the intent to buttress Trump’s agenda of cutting costs on federal spending and deregulation of Government bodies with an end-goal of increasing total Government Efficiency.
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The legality of the DOGE has been in muddy waters with skeptics arguing against the statutory decision-making power of the organization headed by the World’s Richest Man. Reports by The Washington Post and CNN suggest that DOGE has sought access to the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS) used by IRS officers to scrutinize tax records, make changes to taxpayers’ information and to issue Governmental Notices for default and/or other issues.
Musk’s sudden rise to the upper echelons of the US Administration has found the ire of many, who worried that his position as a private magnate might arbitrarily influence Governmental decisions and policy-making.
Latest reports suggest that DOGE has not revealed how they plan to use the information from the IDRS, if retrieved, while the White House has issued a clarification on the position and power enjoyed by Elon Musk within the US Administration.
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The IDRS is a highly secure system which is not generally accessed by IRS Commissioners, access to the system would put at their disposal gargantuan financial data of millions of US citizens.
A court filing signed by the director of the Office of Administration at the White House, Joshua Fisher clarified that Musk’s position is limited to that of an advisory capacity only, having ‘no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself’.
The clarification, provided by Fisher in a case filed by the State of New Mexico against Musk affirmed that Elon was not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service, the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, and neither is Musk the “U.S. DOGE Service Administrator”.
Meanwhile, DOGE has raised concerns about a missing $4.7 trillion in payments from the U.S. Treasury Department. The payments were missing the Treasury Account Symbol (TAS), an identification code directly linking the Treasury payment to a budget line item.
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