Top IRS lawyer pushed aside as DOGE seeks tax records, staffing cuts

The acting chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service has been removed from his position as billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service seeks access to sensitive taxpayer records, according to five people familiar with the matter.

William Paul, a career official named to the position in January, will be replaced by Andrew De Mello, who was nominated to be the Education Department’s inspector general during Trump’s first term, three of the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

The internal reshuffling comes as career staff clash with DOGE officials over attempts to access taxpayer information widely viewed as some of the most closely guarded records in the federal government. The Trump Department of Homeland Security has pushed IRS officials for the addresses of about 700,000 undocumented immigrants — a request viewed by career staff as a violating the law. DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, has also pressed for tax-agency systems, property and datasets.

Separately, the Trump administration is also moving forward with cuts to tens of thousands of jobs at the tax agency.

All five of the people familiar with the matter said Paul’s ouster has provoked concern among career staff already alarmed by an apparent purge across the IRS. Doug O’Donnell, a civil servant who spent several decades at the agency, departed the agency last month amid the disagreement between career staff and political appointees. David A. Lebryk, who oversaw the Treasury Department’s payment systems, also left the government in January after not complying with a DOGE request to unilaterally cease payments on foreign aid.

Spokespeople for the IRS and Treasury Department declined to comment. Paul could not be reached for comment.

DOGE has sought to use IRS records as part of its push to reduce fraud in federal benefits spending. The Washington Post previously reported that DOGE wants to check federal benefits spending against tax records, which could help Musk’s team identify duplicative or erroneous payments.

But these and similar efforts have provoked a significant backlash from career staffers, who point to long-standing legal protections governing the use of sensitive federal data. Civil servants across the government, including at the Social Security Administration and Department of Health and Human Services, have objected in recent days to DOGE’s attempts to penetrate these closely guarded systems.

The Trump administration is also moving ahead with plans to significantly reduce the number of IRS personnel. Some officials have said they are expecting as many as 25,000 additional IRS employees to be laid off, on top of the roughly 12,000 who have already left the tax agency. Tax experts have said these reductions could hurt the ability of the IRS to raise the revenue necessary to fund the U.S. government.