Acting IRS Commissioner Leaving Agency

Melanie Krause has been acting commissioner for about a month.

The IRS headquarters in Washington in an undated file photo. David Ake/AP Photo

The acting commissioner of the IRS, Melanie Krause, is departing the agency, officials said on April 9. She will remain in her position until at least May 15.

“Melanie Krause has been leading the IRS through a time of extraordinary change,” a spokesperson for the Treasury Department, the parent agency of the IRS, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“As we focus on IT modernization and reorganize the agency to better serve the taxpayer, we are also in the midst of breaking down data silos that for too long have stood in the way of identifying waste, fraud, and abuse and bringing criminals to justice.

“We believe these goals are critical to a more efficient government and safer country. We wish Melanie well on her next endeavor.”

Krause joined the IRS in 2021 after seven years with the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General. She was serving as the agency’s chief operating officer when she was promoted in February to acting commissioner, following the retirement of Doug O’Donnell. O’Donnell took over as acting commissioner after Commissioner Danny Werfel stepped down shortly before President Donald Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20.

In a message to The Epoch Times on LinkedIn, Krause declined to share a reason for her departure.

“I really need to keep my nose to the grindstone and focused on filing season right now,” she said.

Former Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), Trump’s nominee for IRS commissioner, is awaiting Senate confirmation.

The IRS and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently reached an agreement that gives DHS the ability to request tax return information for people under criminal investigation, according to a court filing. If DHS requests the information, “the IRS must provide it,” government lawyers said.

“Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, as well as identify what public benefits these aliens are using at the American taxpayer expense,” a DHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

Critics decried the move.

“This is deeply shameful and breaks a promise that information immigrants provided the IRS to pay their taxes would not be used for deportations,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) wrote on social media platform X.

Federal law largely bars the IRS from sharing confidential taxpayer information, although there are exceptions, including for information sought for use in federal criminal investigations.

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department told news outlets in a statement that the agreement was signed under “longstanding authorities granted by Congress, which serve to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans while streamlining the ability to pursue criminals.”

The New York University Tax Law Center said in a brief that the IRS systems are not designed for immigration enforcement and that there will likely be instances in which DHS seeks data on a person and the information the IRS provides is actually from another individual.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.