this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
426 points (98.6% liked)

News

27041 readers
8294 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 104 points 3 weeks 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 81 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

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

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 52 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] Eggyhead@fedia.io 13 points 3 weeks ago

And tampering for cover-ups.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 25 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago

nope. they know exactly who they are targeting. Black, gay, trans, women, poor people.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 55 points 3 weeks ago (11 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 32 points 3 weeks 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 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] Vinstaal0@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

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

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 45 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

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

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Piano wire and a train station?

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] capital_sniff@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah we need to start taxing these rich grifters.

[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 16 points 3 weeks ago

Yes taxes, I mean taxes.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] DogPeePoo@lemm.ee 43 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Alteon@lemmy.world 29 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 43 points 3 weeks 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 21 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago

Wow I hate this.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 23 points 3 weeks ago

hell.

the fuck.

NO.

[–] wirebeads@lemmy.ca 19 points 3 weeks 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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] hansolo@lemm.ee 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

All Americans should freeze your credit immediately.

[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 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.

[–] hansolo@lemm.ee 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

That ads friction to the economy, which is why credit was invented.

If we all just started a grassroots campaign in which EVERYONE freezes their credit in March, it will not be awesome for banks.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Mihies@programming.dev 16 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] adm@lemm.ee 13 points 3 weeks ago

Great, I'm about to get audited by the billionaire that probably doesn't pay taxes. Lovely.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe the sovcits were inadvertently on to something.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

He'll get it

[–] wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 9 points 3 weeks ago

Fucking called it.

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

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] 3dmvr@lemm.ee 7 points 3 weeks ago

Hes good at doing things that look effective to slow ppl

[–] 800XL@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

He has got to go.

[–] scripthook@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Glad I filed my taxes last weekend. Just got my state return and my federal soon. Considering 1,000 people got laid off at the IRS with tax season people will be waiting months for their returns

[–] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago

I started mine early but I'm still waiting for tax documents to arrive, ugh

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

They'll start deporting American citizens who haven't paid their student loans. Back to America! To Guantanamo!

All office dudes are shaking in their pants.

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

Did his pet POTUS already give access? If not gtfo.

load more comments
view more: next ›