“It’s basically an open door controlled by Musk for all Americans’ most sensitive information with none of the rules that normally secure that data,” the IRS source disclosed to Wired. The chilling warning follows the outcry over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his ambitious plans to re-engineer the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) information systems. This week, DOGE is hosting a hackathon in Washington, DC, to build a “mega API” a centralized application program interface that is aiming to provide easier access to IRS data. While supporters are embracing this as a step forward into the future, critics are questioning the feasibility, safety, and morality of taking such a radical action.
The hackathon, the brainchild of DOGE agents Sam Corcos and Gavin Kliger, is a daring departure from the IRS’s usual policy of data segregation. Corcos, the CEO of Levels, the health-tech firm, described the initiative as “one new API to rule them all.” The API would serve as a portal through which cloud platforms could obtain access to taxpayer information, such as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, tax returns, and work history. DOGE has already sucked up $1.5 billion from the modernization budget of the IRS, stopping current engineering activities, Wired quoted Corcos as saying in public. “Mostly projects that were going to continue to put us down the death spiral of complexity in our code base,” Corcos testified in an appearance on Fox News last March.
The new API would render the IRS’s data infrastructure one “read center,” in the cloud, where approved users would be able to view and even edit sensitive taxpayer data. Handy, maybe, but it’s the risks that are enormous. IRS systems today are compartmented, access need-to-know. Compartmenting limits the effects of breaches and prevents sensitive information from being linked. Critics are arguing that concentrating all this information into one system could expose it to the worst cyberthreat.
Added to the indignation is the possible role of Palantir, a data analysis firm established by business partner Peter Thiel of Musk. DOGE members have at different times cited Palantir as a possible candidate to do some of the work. Palantir is directly associated with government surveillance and data analysis activity and its possible involvement has spawned speculations on the level of control private companies would have on taxpayers’ data.
In addition to privacy concerns, the hackathon timeline has drawn skepticism from internal IRS staff. Wired cites DOGE vowing to finish the API within 30 days—a feat one IRS staffer called “not technically possible” and warned would “cripple” the agency. The IRS’s systems are notoriously convoluted, using a combination of old and new technologies. As one source explained to The Verge, Schematizing and understanding the IRS data DOGE is after would take years. These people have no experience, not only in government, but in the IRS or with taxes or anything else.
The hackathon is part of a more comprehensive redesign of the IRS over the course of DOGE’s reign. The past couple of months have seen the agency experience wholesale firings, with over 7,000 probationary workers let go and 50 senior IT officials put on administrative leave. Former IRS leaders warned that the dismissals pose to undermine the agency’s efforts at modernization, which were being taken up through Inflation Reduction Act spending. Former IRS chief data and analytics officer Barry Johnson described the agency’s achievements as “remarkable” despite tight budget controls. Johnson cautioned that further reductions would muffle innovation, reward tax cheats, and dilute the agency’s effectiveness.
Similarly, other critics have expressed alarm in fear that DOGE is compromising the long-term stability for the purpose of efficiency. The IRS had been outlining a sweeping game plan to update its systems, including the implementation of AI and deploying shared platforms like Salesforce and ServiceNow. Those were intended to lower risks posed by outdated systems and offer quicker, more precise services to taxpayers. Most recently, though, DOGE closed down the IRS’s Transformation and Strategy Office, which had been leading these initiatives.
The ramifications of DOGE’s recommendations go on to the IRS and beyond. According to Wired, Musk’s government has also made rumblings about breaking up the Social Security Administration’s infrastructure, placing its COBOL-based infrastructure onto newer programming languages. Modernization is certainly a must, but the hurried and comprehensive nature of DOGE’s proposals caused questions whether enough oversight and experience are being utilized.
AI has a guiding role to play in the IRS of the future in DOGE but needs to be restrained in its implementation. IRS commissioner 2018-2022, Charles Rettig, spoke about not letting people get left behind through the use of AI for performing activities such as audits. “Automation can leverage human resources but not replace human resources,” Rettig stated at an ACT-IAC webinar. Johnson seconded this, further commenting that experts from the field should be engaged in all stages of the AI lifecycle to guarantee accountable use.
As DOGE keeps going on its hackathon and other more sweeping modernization projects, the risk is high. The IRS systems of information are not only central to tax administration but also to protecting sensitive information on millions of Americans. Whether DOGE’s efforts will render the agency more efficient or present new vulnerabilities is yet to be seen.
At least in the short run, one thing is certain: the battle over DOGE’s government vision of efficiency is far from over. As Wired’s coverage richly illustrated, the hackathon is only a start of perhaps revolutionary and very contentious days for the IRS and its data infrastructure.
