DOGE chief Musk wants to 'delete' IRS, and people agree with him

Elon Musk has taken out his scissors and is ready to snip into the administration. His first target is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The SpaceX CEO has been picked by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an outside suggestion group that will work to cut costs across the administration.

Musk asked people on his social media platform X whether the IRS should be "deleted". This strange query was triggered by the department's recent $20 billion request in order to keep functioning.

Musk posted whether the IRS's budget should be "Increased", kept the "Same", "Decreased" or "Deleted".

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Check out Musk'spoll below.

Surprisingly, people seem to be miffed by the monetary request with 60 per cent of them siding with the "deleted" option. Only 3.9 per cent of them said the financing should remain the same. About 5.6 per cent said it should be increased, while 29.9 per cent voted to decrease the budget.

Musk then said, "Well, the public has made their view clear..."

A user also asked him to audit the IRS, to which he said, “Gonna happen.”

Why is the IRS asking for $20 billion?

The Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo recently called for billions of dollars in more funding for the IRS

“The IRS is going to potentially have to make dramatic decisions about stopping hiring and starting to budget for a world in which they don’t have $20 billion, which will stop a lot of their progress,” Adeyemo told reporters on Tuesday.

He added, that if this doesn't happen, there is a "risk they would run out of enforcement money at the current pace sometime in fiscal year 2025".

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the shortfall is supposedly the result of Congressional Republicans imposing a $20 billion IRS enforcement cut into the government funding legislation.

The publication also reported that Musk has been in talks with the agency to create a free tax filing app. Posts made from Musk and DOGE’s X accounts also suggest that he wants to simplify the tax code. Senator Joni Ernst has also asked for an audit of the IRS.