Senate Budget Resolution May Contemplate DOGE “Savings,” but Untallied Costs Could Reach Hundreds of Billions of Dollars

DOGE “savings” cannot plausibly justify or offset tax cuts, because DOGE-related activities at the IRS will substantially increase the deficit by increasing tax cheating and other unpaid taxes, likely overwhelming the savings DOGE has achieved, as analyses from the Tax Law Center and other experts have noted. (Commentators have also noted that many of DOGE’s claimed savings are dubious.)

We have laid out how DOGE’s efforts in the tax space are already a substantial and overlooked source of costs that will likely exceed the savings DOGE might produce, and how further DOGE-driven deregulatory efforts would add more to the deficit. Costly actions DOGE and the Administration have taken or signaled to date include:

• Large-scale layoffs of IRS staff, including those who audit wealthy and large business filers and bring in significant revenue…
• Deregulatory Executive Orders, including one calling for a review of all agency regulations that opens the opens the door to weakening or not enforcing a broad range of tax regulations designed to prevent high-end tax dodging.
• Non-enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act…
• Attempts to transfer or deputize staff from the IRS Criminal Investigations division and the Department of Justice Tax Division….