Every Tax Season Has a Villain and this Year, It’s the U.S. Government

How the Trump administration is turning the IRS into a political weapon—one resignation at a time.

At this point, the IRS doesn’t need a commissioner. It needs a therapist. Or maybe a witness protection program.

In the span of just three months, the agency has lost three commissioners—each one either pushed out, bypassed, or, in the case of Melanie Krause, trampled like a speed bump on the Trump administration’s road to a surveillance state. Her offense? Trying to maintain the idea that taxpayer data should not be used as a bounty map for immigration enforcement.

It’s a bureaucratic horror story dressed up in technocratic language. But make no mistake: what’s happening to the IRS isn’t just mismanagement. It’s state capture.

Acting Commissioner Krause Resigns, and With Her, Any Pretense of Institutional Independence

The latest resignation comes after Treasury and Homeland Security signed an agreement—behind Krause’s back—to share taxpayer data of undocumented immigrants with ICE. You read that right. The tax data that, for decades, the IRS has protected under some of the strictest privacy laws in the country is now part of a political strategy to hunt down immigrants.

The Trump administration didn’t just sideline Krause—they actively excluded her from negotiations, then handed the agreement to Fox News before they even told the IRS. Imagine being the head of an agency and finding out you’ve been undermined on national TV. It’s less “commander of a critical institution” and more “middle manager at a company being sold on Craigslist.”

But it wasn’t just about immigration. Krause’s resignation is a siren call over staffing cuts, tech overhauls, and long-term strategic dismantling she believed the IRS “can never recover from.” That’s not an overstatement. It’s a eulogy.

What’s Really Going On Here?

This is bigger than one resignation. What we’re witnessing is the deliberate weakening of a regulatory institution under the guise of “efficiency,” “transparency,” and good old-fashioned “government reform.”

The Trump administration has long had a problem with the IRS—not because it’s inefficient, but because it’s effective. The IRS is one of the few agencies with the power to check wealth, enforce accountability, and operate independently of presidential whims. Which makes it an obstacle.

So, like any autocratic-minded regime would, they’re neutering it. Quietly. Strategically. Permanently.

This isn’t about immigration. It’s about precedent. If the IRS can be forced to share tax data with DHS today, what’s to stop a future administration from using that data to monitor political donations? Or religious affiliations? Or journalists?

We used to call this kind of thing a civil liberties crisis. Now we call it Tuesday.

Government by Auctioneer, Oversight by Bystander

The chaos isn’t just structural—it’s personal. Meet the new IRS pick: former congressman and auctioneer Billy Long, a man with zero tax policy experience and a professional background in yelling prices quickly.

The message is clear: This isn’t about competence. It’s about control.

Meanwhile, the Treasury and DHS are steamrolling agency lawyers who warned this data-sharing plan likely violates federal privacy laws. Not might violate—likely violates. Which raises the question: if the legal counsel of the IRS says, “this is illegal,” and the executive branch says, “cool, let’s do it anyway,” what’s the point of having laws?

Immigration Hawks Love Undocumented Tax Dollars—Until They Don’t

Here’s the tragicomic kicker: undocumented immigrants already pay taxes. In fact, they contribute billions to the system, often without receiving benefits in return. Many use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), a workaround the IRS created so people—regardless of status—could comply with tax law.

This system worked because the IRS had a longstanding pact: your data is safe with us. Pay your taxes, and we don’t turn you over to ICE. That trust wasn’t just moral—it was functional. Break it, and suddenly millions of people have every reason to vanish from the system.

So this isn’t just cruel. It’s stupid. You don’t fund a government by scaring away your contributors. But then again, cruelty dressed up as reform has always been this administration’s favorite aesthetic.

What’s a Government For, Anyway?

There’s something disturbingly philosophical at play here. A tax system is one of the last shared obligations of a society. It’s the place where ideology hits the ledger. But what happens when that system is no longer neutral? When it becomes a tool of fear, rather than fairness?

The IRS is being reimagined—not as a public service, but as an enforcement arm of executive ideology. What we’re seeing isn’t policy—it’s political retribution dressed as modernization.

The U.S. tax system was built on the premise that everyone contributes, and in return, everyone is protected. The Trump administration is flipping that contract: now, some contribute while others exploit; some are protected while others are surveilled.

This is how trust dies. Not with a scandal, but with a memo faxed to Fox News.

From Watchdog to Lapdog in Three Commissioners Flat

Krause’s exit should ring alarm bells. Instead, it will probably get buried under election coverage and celebrity gossip. But if we’re not careful, we’ll wake up to find that the last semi-independent government agency has been transformed into another tool of the executive branch.

So the question isn’t whether the IRS is broken. It’s who broke it, why, and who benefits from the wreckage.

And here’s a hint: it’s not the taxpayer.

Not the undocumented father working two jobs and filing every April to stay under the radar.

Not the single mother earning just enough to owe.

Not the mid-level agent who thought they were joining a system of rules, not whims.

No—the real winners are the ones who don’t need to file at all.

At this rate, the IRS might as well move into Mar-a-Lago. It’s already under new management.

That’s the point.