IRS, White House clashed over immigrants' data before tax chief was ousted

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. I am shocked that a trump appointee would do the right thing

The Trump administration’s move to push out IRS Commissioner Billy Long came after the agency said it couldn’t release some information on taxpayers suspected of being here illegally.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/09/trump-administration-irs-data-dispute/

The Internal Revenue Service clashed with the White House over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants hours before Trump administration officials forced IRS Commissioner Billy Long from his post Friday, according to two people familiar with the situation.

The Department of Homeland Security sent the IRS a list Thursday of 40,000 names of people DHS officials thought were in the country illegally and asked the IRS to use confidential taxpayer data to verify their addresses, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals......

White House officials requested additional information on the taxpayers the IRS identified, the people said — specifically, if any of them had claimed the earned income tax credit, which can reduce the tax bill for some low-income filers. The IRS declined to provide that information, citing taxpayer privacy rights.

Long had previously told agency executives that his agency would not furnish confidential taxpayer information outside of the confines of the IRS’s agreement with DHS, the people said.

Still, the people did not know if tension over the IRS’s role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive contributed to Long’s departure from the IRS......

He was the sixth IRS leader since the start of the year. One early acting commissioner left amid churn at the agency due to the administration’s cost-cutting campaign led by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, while another left after the agency agreed to the DHS data-sharing arrangement. A third acting commissioner was pushed out after only two days because of an internal conflict between Musk and Bessent.

I am shocked that any trump appointee would do the right thing