A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The White House argues that the unit known as the Department of Government Efficiency needs access to an IRS database that contains the financial records of millions of Americans. DOGE says it's part of their plan to combat waste, fraud and abuse in the government. Critics say, though, giving a political appointee - such as Elon Musk - access to touch highly sensitive data raises serious concerns about privacy and potential misuse.
Let's ask Nina Olson about this. She served for almost two decades as the national taxpayer advocate inside the IRS and is now the executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights. So, Nina, what's in there in that IRS database that could help DOGE identify, as they say, waste, fraud and abuse? What's obvious in there?
NINA OLSON: Well, the IDRS system, the Integrated Data Retrieval System, is basically a way for IRS employees to access pretty much all of the information that the IRS has, whether it's criminal investigation information, taxpayer returns, taxpayer accounts - just every single database. And so I suppose if you're trying to identify fraud, waste and abuse, you could dump all of that into some AI system that who knows what it's been trained on and then declare that you've identified all sorts of returns that have problems.
The problem is we don't know what the use is that they're proposing, and access to that database to that system, IDRS, is closely controlled, and IRS employees are only allowed to access those components that relate directly to their job duties. And if you try to access something else, then that's essentially a crime unless it was just inadvertent, like you typed in a Social Security number and you switched digits or something like that by mistake.
MARTÍNEZ: Would someone from DOGE or maybe someone that's maybe not, you know, intimately aware of IRS information and language be able to say, oh, that. That. That's waste, and that's fraud?
OLSON: Well, that's the problem. I mean, you know, do these folks have background in tax law? You know, we have a very complex code. And, you know, the people that are actually making the determinations are the delegated authority to decide that something is an error or is incorrect or is on the fraud side, which is very rare. You know, fraud is very rare. It's hard to prove. And the government bears the burden of, you know, proof on fraud. You have to have training on that. And so if you're just a software engineer, it's - you know, you don't have the background to say it's fraud. You can say this is looking very unusual, but someone else has to make that determination.
MARTÍNEZ: So there is no guarantee, as far as you're aware, Nina, that if, say, DOGE were to find fraud and just say so that we would be given that evidence, like all of us, for us to see it, too?
OLSON: Well, in order to take an action against a taxpayer, taxpayers have rights, you know, they have due process. So the IRS has to conduct an audit. It has to provide information to the taxpayer, notice to the taxpayer, give them an opportunity to protest. It has to, in most instances, send them something called a notice of deficiency after it feels like there's some error or fraud, and then you are able to go to the tax court to protest that and prove that you are not - you do not have an error or - in the instance of fraud. And we're using fraud very loosely.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
OLSON: You know, fraud is a very specific thing, and there are certain elements that the government has to prove, which, as I say, is very, very hard.
MARTÍNEZ: Right.
OLSON: And you also have the right to present evidence to counter that. So it's not like you can just make a declaration and then have any impact with that against individual taxpayers or businesses.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the IRS is in the middle of a big push to modernize its outdated technology. So knowing that, could Elon Musk's team be helpful in that effort, and do they need access to that database to actually do that?
OLSON: Yes. Well, the IRS is - has been trying for a long time to modernize its technology, and everyone agrees that it needs to. And so with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, it's made great progress. Its own inspector general has said as much back in last fall. And the IRS has lots of contractors working - well, not lots, but has contractors working on its system, and the law allows that they can have access to tax returns and tax return information to the extent necessary and for the purposes of reprogramming, etc.
But you can do a lot of that work without actual taxpayer data - seeing people's names, identity, etc. You can use dummy data. You can use anonymized data to test the systems, and only until the very end, maybe would you need to do a full run with actual taxpayer data. And the question is, well, who needs to do that?
MARTÍNEZ: Nina Olson is the executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights. Nina, thanks.
OLSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
