The acting head of the Internal Revenue Service plans to step down after disagreeing with the decision to share tax data on illegal immigrants with federal law enforcement.
Commissioner Melanie Krause will become the third IRS leader to leave the agency since the start of the year. The agency has been turbulent because left-wing ideologues have decided to follow their political leanings rather than their pledge to serve as non-partisan government employees.
On Monday, the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security finalized an agreement allowing taxpayer data to be shared with federal immigration authorities to assist in locating undocumented immigrants.
According to the Washington Post, officials from the Treasury Department, under which the IRS operates, had largely sidelined Krause recently as they pushed to grant immigration authorities access to private taxpayer information, likely because they knew she would oppose the agreement.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem signed the data-sharing agreement, despite warnings from IRS attorneys that the arrangement likely violated federal privacy laws, the report said.
“Melanie Krause has been leading the IRS through a time of extraordinary change,” a Treasury spokesperson said in an emailed statement confirming her resignation.
Without mentioning the data agreement, the spokesperson noted further that the agency 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.”
Krause’s predecessor, Doug O’Donnell, stepped down as acting commissioner after declining to sign a similar data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security in February. The last Senate-confirmed IRS commissioner, Danny Werfel, resigned on President Donald Trump’s first day in office.