this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Summary

Elon Musk has requested access to the IRS's Integrated Data Retrieval System, which contains personal tax information for millions of Americans.

The request has not yet been granted but has raised alarm among privacy experts and government officials.

Critics fear Musk could misuse the data, especially given his existing federal contracts. The IRS is considering a memorandum to permit access, despite strict rules against unauthorized viewing.

A federal judge has already blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury data, but other agencies remain vulnerable.

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[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 145 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For what reason? How does accessing individual taxpayers private income/tax information allow you weed out wasteful government spending?

[–] jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works 104 points 1 year ago (2 children)

By arbitrarily denying regular people their tax returns for the sake of "saving money"

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 68 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup. Tax refunds are about to become a thing of the past. For the bottom 99%, that is.

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IRS audits for politically motivated reasons are about to become a thing.

[–] Eggyhead@fedia.io 19 points 1 year ago

And tampering for cover-ups.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think there's anything "arbitrary" about who they fuck over.

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[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 76 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Increasingly I am only seeing one solution to this Musk problem.

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Piano wire and a train station?

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It is a classic for the Russian Oligarchs...what the hell, it's traditional.

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[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Increasingly I am seeing Musk as the one solution to this problem:

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[–] capital_sniff@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah we need to start taxing these rich grifters.

[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 28 points 1 year ago

Yes taxes, I mean taxes.

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[–] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 69 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I think he should get access to it.

I think everyone should get access to it.

That's how we do it in Scandinavia. It's been good for fighting corruption.

If your neighbour has a brand new Lamborghini in his driveway, while filling an income of 20k€ the last year. Maybe ask the IRS to look a bit closer at his finances.

I use it to see how much my colleagues make, so I have a leg to stand on in salary negotiations.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago

That's not how it works here... Don't pretend and welcome his horseshit. This is probably about making a personal enemies list

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In a fair democracy, sure. But the US ain’t that; I wouldn’t be surprised if they used donation write-offs to target political opponents.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only way the Trump administration is going to do anything about people cheating on their taxes is to pardon them for it.

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[–] Vinstaal0@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Most of the world also requires annual reports to be made public

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[–] DogPeePoo@lemm.ee 53 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] wreckus@lemmy.ca 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From someone who took Records and Information Management years ago, this is a huge red flag and everyone in the US should be alarmed and pissed off about this.

Elon and his DOGE fools have no right to have access to American’s IRS records.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What? You don't think some teenager with a stupid online nickname and Wicked Cool 7331 Hax0r Coding Skillz has the right to your data and my data?

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[–] Alteon@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are worming their way through the various departments looking for something....dirt on their opponents?

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Probably dirt on everyone. And just to farm for their own purposes. Collate all the federal data, pump it into his grok LLM, and try to create his own file on every consumer.

[–] einlander@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

AI generated dossiers, terrifying. Imagine all the crimes the AI can hallucinate a person did. And with generative audiovisual AI can manufacturer the evidence.

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[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

hell.

the fuck.

NO.

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Fuck Musk and ship him back to South Africa without a US passport.

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[–] wirebeads@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He wants to live like common people. He wants to see whatever common people see.

— he’s never paid any tax, so he obviously wants to live vicariously with the eyes of the poors. Not as one though, just wants to get closer to understanding them by looking at their tax returns, illegally.

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[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm shocked they even asked

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[–] Mihies@programming.dev 19 points 1 year ago

At last we'll see Trump's tax records 👀🍿

[–] hansolo@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All Americans should freeze your credit immediately.

[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

All Americans should have their credit frozen in general. You can unfreeze it any time you want to make a big finance decision like a mortgage but there's no reason to just leave it out there the rest of the time.

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[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So given that his little team of unqualified racist have already proven to leak classified data and can't secure a server with even basic security that someone on the homeserver community would do, it would be funny if this is how Trump's tax returns would come out to light.

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[–] 3dmvr@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

Hes good at doing things that look effective to slow ppl

[–] match@pawb.social 12 points 1 year ago

Read only access, right?

Right?

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe the sovcits were inadvertently on to something.

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How would that help make the government more efficient? What is his justification?

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[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

He'll get it

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

The only positive thing here is that they ask instead of just take.

[–] wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 9 points 1 year ago

Fucking called it.

https://fedia.io/m/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world/t/1804942/Repeat-after-me-The-power-they-HAVE-is-the-POWER

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