The Internal Revenue Service, which collects taxes, could be under the chopping board as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government efficiency begins to work after Americans on X voted to eliminate the department. To cut government costs, DOGE will close agencies, fire personnel, and audits have apparently begun on X. Elon Musk took a poll on Wednesday to see if Internal Revenue Service should be deleted. The vote came after the department asked for $20 billion more money.
“The IRS just said it wants $20B more money. Do you think his budget should be: increase, same, decrease, deleted,” Musk asked in the poll. And more than 60 percent of users voted in favor of deleting his budget. Only 3.9 percent said the federal agency’s budget should stay the same, 5.6 percent thought it deserved more money and 29.9 percent said the IRS budget should be cut.
“Well, the public has made their opinion clear…” Elon Musk posted.
Elon Musk’s vote followed Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemi’s public plea for billions of dollars in more funding for the IRS. “The IRS is going to have to make dramatic decisions about potentially stopping hiring and starting a budget for the world in which they don’t have $20 billion, which will halt a lot of their progress,” Adeyemo said at a press conference. “If they don’t get that $20 billion that’s at stake, they’re going to run out of enforcement money at the current pace sometime in fiscal year 2025,” he added.
Adeyemo urged Congress to unlock $20 billion in funding for the IRS in the next budget, saying thousands of fewer audits for the wealthy and big corporations without money would add $140 billion to the national deficit.
X users who do not support the idea of scrapping the IRS said that eliminating the department would only help Elon Musk and “his billionaire friends” evade taxes.
In a Joe Rogan interview, Donald Trump indicated that he would consider getting rid of the income tax and replacing it with tariffs.