Senate Democrats are very worried about just one Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) aide set to gain access to an IRS system after the Biden administration authorized 53 researchers and student volunteers – and hundreds of additional individuals – to access unmasked IRS data, an inspector general report detailed in September.
The contradiction underscores the political success of DOGE’s initiative to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Not only is the Trump administration seeking to save taxpayers money, but it is also forcing Democrats into a corner to presumably support waste, fraud, and abuse.
Democrat Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are two Democrats caught in the quandary. In a letter to the IRS, they expressed “serious concerns,” as CNN put it, about the IRS data being compromised due to the single DOGE member accessing IRS systems.
DOGE is expected to send Gavin Kliger, a software engineer, to work at the IRS for at least 120 days to inspect IRS systems and data.
“The IRS must immediately disclose to the Senate Committee on Finance the full extent of the potential access to IRS systems and data granted to DOGE team members so that the Committee can address any efforts by DOGE personnel to gain access to taxpayer records at the IRS, which may constitute criminal violations of federal privacy laws,” the democrats wrote.
As Democrats raise concerns about DOGE’s oversight, the Biden administration permitted “291 contractors, 74 other Federal agency employees, and 53 unpaid hires (researchers and student volunteers), to access the IRS’s Compliance Data Warehouse (CDW), according to an inspector general report issued September 9, 2024. The report found the individuals were authorized IRS access in 2023.
Many of those individuals were granted access to unmasked data that “includes Personally Identifiable Information,” the report stated, which “requires an approved access entitlement, and access to Personally Identifiable Information also requires executive level approval,” according to the report:
Compliance Data Warehouse (CDW). According to the IRS, the primary goal of the CDW is to provide a single, integrated environment of data and computing services to support the research and analysis needs of IRS employees and research analysts. The CDW is not a traditional computer software application. At its core, the CDW is a massive data warehouse containing multiple years of Federal Tax Information and Personally Identifiable Information consolidated from multiple sources, internal and external to the IRS. The CDW offers a broad range of databases that research analysts may access through a variety of data analytic tools. Examples of the data available include:
• Individual Master File data.
• Business Master File data.
• Tax return data.
• Taxpayer contact information.
• Conversations between a taxpayer and an IRS agent.
• Actions that took place on behalf of the IRS.
…
As of September 2023, the CDW had 1,173 users including 755 IRS employees, 291 contractors, 74 other Federal agency employees, and 53 unpaid hires (researchers and student volunteers). There were 254 users who had access to masked data and 919 users who had access to unmasked data. Masked data contains no Personally Identifiable Information, while unmasked data includes Personally Identifiable Information. Access to either kind of data requires an approved access entitlement, and access to Personally Identifiable Information also requires executive level approval.
