In its latest attack on DOGE's cut in federal spending and staff reductions, PBS News Hour reporter Laura Barron-Lopez spoke on Monday with the recently resigned IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel. He delighted PBS as one of the seven authors of a February 24 New York Times essay, predictably against the Trump firings: “Trump Just Fired 6,700 I.R.S. Workers in the Middle of Tax Season. That’s a Huge Mistake.”
PBS dutifully crammed the hypothetical budget cut highway with awful-sounding blockades, and added an old-fashioned soak-the-rich twist.
Co-anchor Amna Nawaz: The Internal Revenue Service is in the process of terminating more than 6,000 employees, around 6 percent of the agency's overall work force. It comes as Elon Musk's team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, continues its efforts to cut the federal work force….
Laura Barron-Lopez: Amna, these firings come in the middle of tax filing season and target relatively recent hires. Experts warn that this change will hurt the IRS' ability to investigate ultra-wealthy who are evading taxes. Today, in a New York Times opinion piece, former IRS commissioners who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, called the mass layoffs a mistake. They write that the firings -- quote -- "will shift the burden of funding the government from people who shirk their taxes to the honest people who pay them."
She set up Werfel with an easy pitch: “Why do you see these layoffs as a mistake?”
Daniel Werfel: ….by cutting the IRS and depleting the ability of the U.S. government to collect revenue, you really are becoming less cost-efficient, not more cost-efficient. And we wanted to put that right up in front in our op-ed and ask the question, why cut the part of the government that collects the revenue if you're going to try to be more cost-efficient?
Barron-Lopez's rhetoric was more left-populist that objective journalist. But we should expect tax-funded television to despise "tax cheats."
Barron-Lopez: What kind of impact could this have on Americans, especially in this season? And will it make it easier for tax cheats?
Werfel: Well, it's my understanding that they're really focusing on those that are collecting overdue or balanced due taxes. And so immediately you will see a reduction in the revenue coming in to fund the U.S. government. But also a big layoff like this right in the middle of tax filing season is likely to be very disruptive….
Barron-Lopez: The White House says that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thinks that there should be more firings on top of the current ones. And all of this, Elon Musk says, is being done under the banner of fraud and waste, which you mentioned. Do you think that there's a case for streamlining this agency? What's your response to those claims of fraud?
Werfel said something interesting at the end of his long answer: “….You collect more information about the person or the organization receiving the payment.”
Barron-Lopez: About American taxpayers.
Werfel: About American taxpayers or businesses….
Wait: Aren’t these the same people complaining that Elon Musk might look at their tax returns? But Werfel has no compunction against needing more taxpayer money in order to collect more information about taxpayers.
Barron-Lopez, seemingly oblivious to the contradiction, focused on the left’s current Public Enemy No. 1, Elon Musk.
Barron-Lopez: I want to ask you about Elon Musk and his DOGE workers getting access to the IRS system, which contains personal tax information that you're talking about for individuals and businesses. Why should taxpayers care that Musk, who's unelected, who says that he's policing his own conflicts of interest, have? Why should they care about him having access to such material? And who typically has access to it?
PBS was too busy defending the Internal Revenue Service to raise awkward questions about how the IRS has been invading taxpayer privacy (of conservative nonprofit groups especially) long before Musk got involved.
This segment was brought to you in part by American Cruise Lines.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Hour
2/24/25
7:22:54 p.m. (ET)
Amna Nawaz: The Internal Revenue Service is in the process of terminating more than 6,000 employees, around 6 percent of the agency's overall work force. It comes as Elon Musk's team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, continues its efforts to cut the federal work force.
Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has more — Laura.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Amna, these firings come in the middle of tax filing season and target relatively recent hires. Experts warn that this change will hurt the IRS' ability to investigate ultra-wealthy who are evading taxes.
Today, in a New York Times opinion piece, former IRS commissioners who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, called the mass layoffs a mistake. They write that the firings — quote — "will shift the burden of funding the government from people who shirk their taxes to the honest people who pay them."
And they added that it will impede efforts by the IRS to simplify the tax filing process for everyone.
To discuss, I'm joined by one of the authors, Daniel Werfel, former commissioner of the IRS who resigned last month more than two years earlier than expected.
Mr. Werfel, thank you so much for joining us.
Daniel Werfel, Former Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner: Good to be here.
Laura Barron-Lopez: An IRS commissioner from every administration, essentially, from Ronald Reagan to present, signed onto this op-ed. Why do you see these layoffs as a mistake?
Daniel Werfel: Well, we got together as former commissioners and we tried to understand why this was being undertaken. And we understood that it was being undertaken in the interest of cost efficiency. And this made no sense to us.
All of us, all the previous commissioners have experience in the private sector. And from our experience, we know that the bottom line is not just about cutting costs. It's also about maintaining and increasing revenue. So by cutting the IRS and depleting the ability of the U.S. government to collect revenue, you really are becoming less cost-efficient, not more cost-efficient.
And we wanted to put that right up in front in our op-ed and ask the question, why cut the part of the government that collects the revenue if you're going to try to be more cost-efficient?
Laura Barron-Lopez: What kind of impact could this have on Americans, especially in this season? And will it make it easier for tax cheats?
Daniel Werfel: Well, it's my understanding that they're really focusing on those that are collecting overdue or balanced due taxes. And so immediately you will see a reduction in the revenue coming in to fund the U.S. government.
But also a big layoff like this right in the middle of tax filing season is likely to be very disruptive. And it's absolutely important that the IRS during this time is answering the phone, is maintaining those appointments in the walk-in centers and, really important, processing tax returns and getting people their refunds as quickly as possible.
And all the commissioners, we all talked about the fact that, during filing season, we try to not increase risk. We try to maintain a lot of stability to make sure that people are getting their refunds on time. And a giant layoff like this is bound to increase risk and it's very concerning.
Laura Barron-Lopez: The White House says that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thinks that there should be more firings on top of the current ones. And all of this, Elon Musk says, is being done under the banner of fraud and waste, which you mentioned.
Do you think that there's a case for streamlining this agency? What's your response to those claims of fraud?
Daniel Werfel: I certainly think there's an opportunity to modernize. And during the transition, when I was at the IRS, I talked to the Trump transition team about opportunities to automate and add technology.
But there's work to be done before you start terminating employees, because you're going to lose performance if you're not ready to automate while you're cutting staff. So, really, I do think there's opportunity in the future to streamline the IRS, but it has to be done thoughtfully. I wouldn't do it during filing season.
And you raised the question about fraud. There is absolutely too much fraud in the government. There's too many tax scams. And the IRS work force has worked tirelessly to try to address that fraud and address those tax scams. And there's a lot of expertise and people at the IRS that you want to maintain to help protect people from these scams and to protect taxpayer dollars.
But here's the thing about fraud and error. And I have been involved in fraud and error for pretty much my entire career of trying to prevent it. And I never believe that I have the monopoly on the right answer. But I have lessons learned.
And one of the lessons learned is we don't know when payments are going out the door whether they're fraudulent or not. In order to get smarter about it, typically, what you do is two things. You collect more information about the person or the organization receiving the payment.
Laura Barron-Lopez: About American taxpayers.
Daniel Werfel: About American taxpayers or businesses. And you take more time and you do more diligence to validate whether the payment is an error or not.
And when this has been tried, when we have tried as a government to collect more information from the public to get a better sense of whether a payment is fraudulent or not, there has rightfully been pushback. I don't want the government to have all this information. I don't want this additional paperwork burden. And I don't want the government to take so long to make the payment.
So a balance is made where, in the interest of speed and the interest of reducing paperwork burden on Americans, there is error in payments that go out. And work has been done over time to reduce that error. But if we're going to eliminate fraud and error, the way the Trump administration is describing, tough questions need to be presented on, what does that mean in terms of the information you're going to collect from Americans and businesses, and does that mean delays in payments that are going out?
Laura Barron-Lopez: I want to ask you about Elon Musk and his DOGE workers getting access to the IRS system, which contains personal tax information that you're talking about for individuals and businesses.
Why should taxpayers care that Musk, who's unelected, who says that he's policing his own conflicts of interest, have? Why should they care about him having access to such material? And who typically has access to it?
Daniel Werfel: What the government does when somebody comes in, whether it's an employee or a contractor, and says, I need access to this information, the government just doesn't hand it over. They ask questions. They ask questions like, why do you need this information? How long do you need it for to achieve your objective? And what is your proven trustworthiness to have this information?
And that's exactly what the government is doing. People are coming in and asking for broad amount of information, information about every taxpayer, your bank account information, your address, your household makeup. And before that information is just handed over in Musk, civil servants in the government are saying, OK, tell us why you need it and for how long you need it.
And if the answer doesn't match up, if the answer that comes across is, well, we really don't have a good explanation of why we need everybody's information and we don't know how long we need it for, well, then these civil servants are going to ask more questions before they hand the data over.
And as a citizen, where my information is in those systems and your information, I'm glad that the government is asking those questions before they just knee-jerk hand the data over.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Daniel Werfel, former IRS commissioner, thank you for your time.
Daniel Werfel: Thank you.
