By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has blocked a key aide to tech billionaire Elon Musk from accessing individual taxpayer returns or other personal information as part of a deal signed between the tax-collecting agency and the Trump administration.
The agreement would seem to avert what some IRS officials had privately described as a worst-case scenario, in which the aide, 25-year-old software engineer Gavin Kliger, had free reign of the agency’s databases containing sensitive taxpayer data.
Senior IRS executives have been pushing to limit Kliger’s access to data since he arrived at the agency’s headquarters last week under directions from Musk and President Donald Trump to lead the effort to streamline its operations.
In a memorandum of understanding dated Wednesday and signed by Kliger and officials at the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management, Kliger’s role is described as being focused on improving the agency’s software and IT systems to make them more efficient.
The agreement also details restrictions on Kliger’s access to taxpayer information during his 120-day detail to the agency.
“Should access to I.R.S. systems that contain returns or return information become necessary as part of the detailee’s duties under this agreement, that access shall only be provided if it is anonymized and in a manner that cannot be associated with, directly or indirectly, any taxpayer,” the agreement says.
The acting commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration, Michelle King, this week left her job following a clash with Musk’s staffers over access to sensitive agency records.
The IRS is carrying out mass firings of probationary employees. The agency started notifying impacted workers on Thursday and plans to eventually terminate 6,700 staff, equal to nearly 7% of its total workforce.
The cuts are part of Trump’s unprecedented effort to shrink the federal government that has targeted tens of thousands employees ranging from rocket scientists to park rangers. The effort is being led by Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign donor.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Sandra Maler)
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