The White House and Treasury Department have officially shut down D.O.G.E’s access to sensitive IRS tax data today. According to a report from Politico, the agreement came through a memorandum of understanding designed to block D.O.G.E from getting their hands on individual taxpayer records.
The decision comes after weeks of growing outrage in Washington, where Democrats, some Republicans, and taxpayer advocacy groups accused the administration of violating federal privacy laws by allowing the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) to audit the IRS’s internal systems.
A string of legal challenges (largely pushed by Democrats) also landed on the US Treasury’s desk, alleging that D.O.G.E’s aggressive cost-cutting measures threatened the integrity of confidential taxpayer data.
Treasury Sec stands by D.O.G.E
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has spent the past two weeks defending D.O.G.E’s role inside the IRS, insisting that the Elon Musk-backed initiative was only focused on fixing inefficiencies and tackling fraud. Speaking with Fox News, Scott dismissed the criticism as “fear-mongering”, revealing that only one D.O.G.E employee was ever inside the IRS’s offices—and that person was reviewing outdated IT infrastructure, not tax records.
“They have no ability to touch anything,” Scott told Bloomberg on Wednesday, adding that “guardrails around them” prevent any unauthorized access.
The resulting agreement effectively cuts off D.O.G.E’s direct involvement with IRS data systems while also setting new limits on how the agency interacts with Treasury databases.
D.O.G.E’s presence in the Treasury has been controversial from day one. In the early days of Trump’s return to the White House, Bessent gave the green light for D.O.G.E team members to access Treasury’s payment infrastructure, which processes over $5 trillion in federal transactions every year. That decision triggered legal action, and within weeks, a federal judge in Manhattan issued an order blocking D.O.G.E employees and most political appointees from touching the system. A second ruling in Washington restricted who could access the financial network.
The Trump administration is actively fighting those court rulings, arguing that federal judges have no business interfering with the executive branch’s internal cost-cutting measures. Republicans have also rallied behind Trump, branding the legal challenges as an overreach into government operations.
Meanwhile, the Treasury has begun reshuffling its oversight team. In a court filing submitted Thursday, the agency confirmed that Ryan Wunderly will be stepping in to replace Marko Elez, the former D.O.G.E specialist assigned to scrutinize Treasury’s financial infrastructure.
Elez, who resigned this month after The Wall Street Journal uncovered racist social media posts, had been tasked with examining federal payment systems before his abrupt exit.
John York, a senior counselor to Scott Bessent, confirmed in a sworn statement that Wunderly will now take over Elez’s responsibilities and will report directly to Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group and acting fiscal assistant secretary overseeing the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
IRS braces for mass firings
The Trump administration has already started firing, with more than 6,000 IRS workers already gone, in what is now the biggest cuts targeting tax enforcement roles. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended the layoffs during a White House press briefing, saying, “Our objective is to make sure that the employees that we pay are being productive and effective.”
“There are more than 100,000 people working to collect taxes,” Hassett said. “Not all of them are fully occupied.”
Meanwhile, a proposal going viral inside the White House could put some of D.O.G.E’s savings directly into taxpayers’ pockets. The idea, first floated on social media, is that if D.O.G.E slashes $2 trillion in spending, about one-fifth of the savings—roughly $400 billion—could be redistributed to Americans in the form of $5,000 checks per household.
“I love it,” Trump said late Wednesday to reporters on Air Force One, when asked about the proposal.
But economists and market analysts are deeply skeptical. With the annual budget deficit sitting at $1.8 trillion last year, experts argue that any savings from D.O.G.E’s cuts will likely go toward reducing government debt rather than issuing direct payments.
Others warn that sending out mass stimulus checks could fuel inflation, much like the pandemic-era payments under Trump and Biden.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shrugged off those concerns on Thursday, saying that under the proposed plan, D.O.G.E must first complete its cost-cutting work by July 2026. If the $2 trillion target is successfully met, the government could then redistribute one-fifth of the savings to the 79 million households that actually pay income taxes. That means the 40% of Americans who don’t pay federal income tax would receive nothing.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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