Trump’s IRS Cuts Are Tempting Taxpayers to Cheat
With DOGE cutting deep at the tax agency, more Americans might feel emboldened to dodge payments.
Photographer: Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Internal Revenue Service—firing its workers, throwing open its doors to Elon Musk and his unofficial Department of Government Efficiency—has already achieved one of the president’s goals: swift retribution against an agency Republicans have scorned for years.
“On Day 1, I immediately halted the hiring of any new IRS agents,” Trump told a Las Vegas crowd the week he retook office in January. “You know they hired, or tried to hire, 88,000 new workers to go after you. And we’re in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them—or maybe we’ll move them to the border.” Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, has gone further, saying the president’s ultimate desire is to “abolish” the agency and, improbably, fund the government with revenue from tariffs.