Summary

Elon Musk has requested access to the IRS’s Integrated Data Retrieval System, which contains personal tax information for millions of Americans.

The request has not yet been granted but has raised alarm among privacy experts and government officials.

Critics fear Musk could misuse the data, especially given his existing federal contracts. The IRS is considering a memorandum to permit access, despite strict rules against unauthorized viewing.

A federal judge has already blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury data, but other agencies remain vulnerable.

  • wreckus@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    From someone who took Records and Information Management years ago, this is a huge red flag and everyone in the US should be alarmed and pissed off about this.

    Elon and his DOGE fools have no right to have access to American’s IRS records.

    • jws_shadotak
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      4 days ago

      By arbitrarily denying regular people their tax returns for the sake of “saving money”

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Theoretically (not wasteful spending, but corruption) - by noticing unexplainable incomes of government employees and relatives of those and politicians and their relatives. In practice - I don’t think they can be caught this easily.

      Also it is a huge dataset from which one can have some insights on how to, well, optimize taxes and tax returns for whatever goal one wishes.

      In practice others have already answered that.

  • adm@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Great, I’m about to get audited by the billionaire that probably doesn’t pay taxes. Lovely.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Even better, the “audit” will be done by some teenager named “Big Balls”.

      I’m sure they have the wisdom, the experience, and level-headed presence of mind to properly deal with that kind of responsibility.

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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      2 days ago

      Good news everyone!

      Musky’s audit has shown the billionaires are actually owed money from the government. Thankfully, those professionally weekend trained auditors confirmed that the working class owes billions in taxes.

      The working class has two options: come with the money or be sent to a work camp to pay off the ever increasing tax debt.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      Fuck Musk but this thing of shipping people around is crap. Just jail him like any regular criminal.

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        Nah, just put him in one of those idiot squishers like the Titan-1C that took out a handful of billionaires last year.

        • Shapillon@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Seize everything he owns down to the last penny. He now has to work an entry level job for minimum wage.

  • PetteriPano@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I think he should get access to it.

    I think everyone should get access to it.

    That’s how we do it in Scandinavia. It’s been good for fighting corruption.

    If your neighbour has a brand new Lamborghini in his driveway, while filling an income of 20k€ the last year. Maybe ask the IRS to look a bit closer at his finances.

    I use it to see how much my colleagues make, so I have a leg to stand on in salary negotiations.

    • Snapz@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      That’s not how it works here… Don’t pretend and welcome his horseshit. This is probably about making a personal enemies list

    • thatKamGuy
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      3 days ago

      In a fair democracy, sure. But the US ain’t that; I wouldn’t be surprised if they used donation write-offs to target political opponents.

      • ehoff121@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        Political donations are generally not tax deductible so wouldn’t show up on the returns.

        • thatKamGuy
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          3 days ago

          You’ve misunderstood; Donations to charities like The Trevor Project are deductible, and would be very much considered political.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      The only way the Trump administration is going to do anything about people cheating on their taxes is to pardon them for it.

    • krimson@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Also very convenient for criminals to target wealthy people and scam or rob them?

      • mindaika@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Good point: a lot of theft stems from people reading tax returns and robbing the rich. That’s why high-income neighborhoods also have the highest crime 🙄

      • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        You know what’s even more convenient?

        Scammers from poorer countries just targeting the elderly and retired in richer countries. You know, like they currently do.

        What’s with the fear mongering about a system that’s been shown to reduce corruption? Do you like corruption? Do you like people cheating the benefits system?

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        You can find the rich people by driving to the best part of town. If they stop you from going further you’ve found the wealthy people.

      • Blinsane@reddthat.com
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        3 days ago

        The same argument that’s been parroted by right wing parties here for decades. However it doesn’t really mesh well with reality. Not that right wing parties ever really cared about reality.

    • kofe@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      First thing that came to mind for me is going after retired federal employees, veterans, etc. Also locating immigrants, even if they’re here legally with documentation.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    So given that his little team of unqualified racist have already proven to leak classified data and can’t secure a server with even basic security that someone on the homeserver community would do, it would be funny if this is how Trump’s tax returns would come out to light.

    • Lør@sopuli.xyz
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      3 days ago

      Hs team of probably cocaine addled computer whateversa re there to STEAL info. Not to fix, not to create. Bear that in mind.

  • Alteon@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    They are worming their way through the various departments looking for something…dirt on their opponents?

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Probably dirt on everyone. And just to farm for their own purposes. Collate all the federal data, pump it into his grok LLM, and try to create his own file on every consumer.

      • einlander@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        AI generated dossiers, terrifying. Imagine all the crimes the AI can hallucinate a person did. And with generative audiovisual AI can manufacturer the evidence.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          I don’t think it’s about that, even Musk isn’t this dumb. It’s about AI-generated individual profiles for propaganda and surveillance. One can play a person having studied them well enough. And turns out that of this LLMs are capable.

          • einlander@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            While Elon might not do this, he has lackeys that aren’t scrupled. And maybe Trump has a meddlesome priest he wants Elon to take away. I’m not very optimistic about the current regime.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              What you said is a subset of what I said, so I didn’t say you were wrong, just that it’s not everything. Point being, I said I think it’s worse. Didn’t sleep well, so my grammar is atrocious.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Right, propaganda had to be aimed at the average citizen, or at least the average citizen of a few major groups or layers. A huge headache. With enough data one can have personalized propaganda.

        It’s only the Web and customer UI\UX which are now “one size fits all” and becoming worse, with things really important for these companies they are doing their job properly.

        I mean, that’s where it was always going, since “big data” was a new buzzword, and neural nets were something only geeks cared about, with no commercial hype visible. When Bitcoin seemed a new anarchist (right anarchism is still that) thing, and The Silk Road was operational.

        Why - because it was about advertising and insights for companies about customers, and also about creating a non-neutral medium from a social network, or in our current existence from the Web itself. A non-neutral medium is where your messages get effectively lost or amplified or distorted, depending on some policy.

        You as a customer or a user don’t need that to make your choice with whom to talk or what to buy. These destinations are all real, and thus a social media company doesn’t need any information to “create” them. If they are distorting them, then they are distorting your own choices. They are stealing from you, in fact. This is violence and was always going towards the sad state of affairs we have now.

        And I think it’s worse than what people say about “fascism” or “cronyism” or whatever.

    • cranakis@reddthat.com
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      3 days ago

      You’re not wrong We’re fucked. I’m waiting for everyone else to get mad enough to revolt with me. Fuck Elon Musk. No one voted for that cunt.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Oh, I’m sure it’s all for good reasons of “efficiency” and more of fElon’s altruism and deep concern for the country.

    🙄