As oversight weakens, protecting IRS data is essential

“Due to a lack of apportionment of funds, this website is currently unavailable.” This single sentence on a blank screen is what you saw if you tried to visit the website of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) at the beginning of the month. Now, an interim version of the website is active, but it lacks the vast majority of TIGTA’s oversight reports.  

TIGTA was not the only oversight body that went down. More than a dozen oversight and whistleblower websites temporarily went offline or are still offline—not because of the government shutdown, but because the Trump administration has arbitrarily withheld the funds that support these oversight functions. 

Specifically, the administration has refused to spend money allocated for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, which was established in 2008 with bipartisan congressional support, to coordinate and support oversight across federal agencies. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have called upon the Office of Management and Budget to “reverse course” and inquired under what legal authority the administration had made its decision. This is far from the Trump administration’s first attack on inspectors general; Trump has fired or demoted at least 20 IGs this year.  

Oversight and accountability can feel like abstractions, but the impact of the inspectors general is very real. That’s true under normal conditions of governance, and especially so this year as Congress and the courts have failed to check the executive branch’s attempted consolidation of power. TIGTA, for example, has conducted essential investigations into the sudden decimation of the IRS workforce. They have also provided crucial analyses of the implications of the workforce cuts for the upcoming filing season, including that staffing losses may delay refunds, prevent about $360 million in fraudulent refunds from being stopped, reduce customer service to taxpayers, cause 169,000 fewer taxpayers to receive in-person assistance, and hinder IRS readiness for the filing season. Without the inspectors general, citizens, journalists, and even lawmakers lack adequate information about the actions of the government.  

The shuttering of oversight websites is the latest in a long series of data disappearances. Our focus area of taxation has seen less information loss than other policy areas, such as climate change and other environmental issues, but the effects are nonetheless palpable. In February, a message appeared on some IRS webpages outlining IRS policies noting that “certain content is unavailable,” while the agency worked to conform with “policy changes from executive orders.” That message was accompanied by a reminder that “You can still access prior content through a FOIA request.” By May, however, the message’s link to the Freedom of Information Act guidelines was also gone.  

Against the possibility of data disappearances, we have been working all year to preserve information that has traditionally been housed at IRS.gov and related sites, and to make that information more accessible and user friendly. We’ll be launching that initiative via a new portal, tentatively titled the “IRS Spotlight,” in time for the next tax season. In the meantime, however, we have made our copy of TIGTA.gov available (updated as of July 31, 2025).  

Download TIGTA Mirror

The disappearance of the IG websites would have, in other times, been a scandal. This month, it has mostly been lost in the larger chaos. But it is vital that citizens have access to government information. Lacking such a capability limits citizen influence and people’s ability to evaluate what is happening inside government. As the executive works to undermine Congress’ power of the purse and to weaken mechanisms of transparency and accountability, we will continue to preserve the public knowledge that enables democratic societies to perform effective oversight of their governments.