The acting head of the Internal Revenue Service will resign in the wake of a deal struck on behalf of the agency that will see it share tax data on undocumented immigrants.
Melanie Krause, a commissioner at the IRS who is the third person to serve as its chief since the start of the year, will pack up her desk as part of the deferred resignation program offered by the Trump administration, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
The news of her plans to leave the federal agency comes less than a week before the deadline for individual tax returns.
Krause decided to resign in an apparent protest to the Trump administration’s actions, sources told the Washington Post.
“Melanie Krause has been leading the IRS through a time of extraordinary change,” a Treasury Department spokesperson told the outlet, adding the department was “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.”
The tax-collecting agency had just finalized an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to share taxpayer data to help the immigration authority identify undocumented immigrants.
The data-sharing deal was signed Monday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — bypassing Krause as the head of the IRS, which is part of the Treasury Department, the Washington Post reported.
The deal will allow DHS to request information about migrants who are already facing deportation orders and who are under criminal investigation — with the IRS then responsible for sharing existing taxpayer data.
Doug O’Donnell, the previous acting head of the IRS, also resigned due to the Treasury’s attempt to sign a data-sharing agreement with DHS in February.
The last Senate-confirmed IRS chief, Danny Wefel, left the post on President Trump’s first day in office.
Lawyers with the IRS said that the data-sharing agreement likely violates privacy laws, the Washington Post reported.
But the Trump administration has argued that the deal is a necessary step towards better better-functioning government.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the government is finally doing what it should have done all along: sharing information across the federal government to solve problems,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Tuesday.
Last Friday, the IRS began a new round of massive job cuts to its workforce with the goal of eliminating 25% of its workforce, according to reports.
With Post wires.
