DOGE-affiliated IRS employee expected to seek taxpayer info

NBC News - An IRS employee who is affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency is expected to seek access to an IRS system that houses sensitive taxpayer information, according to an administration official.  The DOGE-affiliated person in question is an IRS employee who started after President Donald Trump's second inauguration, the administration official confirmed to NBC News. The official said the employee was carrying out the "DOGE mission" and acting “legally and with the appropriate security clearances.”

The access would be to the Integrated Data Retrieval System, which allows IRS employees to access taxpayer accounts. An administration official originally said that the employee had been granted access but later clarified that the employee was expected to seek access and was not already in the system. The IDRS allows employees to have “instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts,” according to the IRS website. It contains information such as taxpayers’ individual master files, taxpayer identification numbers, retirement account information and details on pending adoptions.

"Waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said when asked about the employee's potential access to the sensitive system. "It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it."