The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has plans to take advantage of the "AI boom" to fill glaring workforce gaps, following the layoff of thousands of tax agents. In a May 6 oversight hearing of the House Appropriations Committee, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that the agency would be leaning into AI solutions in order to accommodate further reductions in the IRS' budget and staff and not fall behind on tax collection. The Treasury's budget proposal includes the removal of another 40,000 jobs. According to Bessent, proposed cuts to the agency's IT budget could be an opportunity to modernize and restructure the agency's existing IT infrastructure, as the current administration hones in on "wasteful" spending. "I believe, through smarter IT, through this AI boom, that we can use that to enhance collections. And I would expect that collections would continue to be very robust, as they were this year," he said.

Palantir, the software company cofounded by Peter Thiel, is part of an effort by Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to build a new "mega API" for accessing Internal Revenue Service records, IRS sources tell WIRED. For the last three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career IRS engineers, have been collaborating to build a single API layer above all IRS databases at an event previously characterized to WIRED as a "hackathon," sources tell WIRED. Palantir representatives have been on-site at the event this week, a source with direct knowledge tells WIRED. APIs are application programming interfaces, which enable different applications to exchange data, and could be used to move IRS data to the cloud and access it there. DOGE has expressed an interest in the API project possibly touching all IRS data, which includes taxpayer names, addresses, social security numbers, tax returns, and employment data.

In multiplayer games, self-interested behavior among the players can harm the social welfare. Tax mechanisms are a common method to alleviate this issue and induce socially optimal behavior. In this work, we take the initial step of learning the optimal tax that can maximize social welfare with limited feedback in congestion games. We propose a new type of feedback named equilibrium feedback, where the tax designer can only observe the Nash equilibrium after deploying a tax plan. Existing algorithms are not applicable due to the exponentially large tax function space, nonexistence of the gradient, and nonconvexity of the objective. To tackle these challenges, we design a computationally efficient algorithm that leverages several novel components: (1) a piece-wise linear tax to approximate the optimal tax; (2) extra linear terms to guarantee a strongly convex potential function; (3) an efficient subroutine to find the exploratory tax that can provide critical information about the game.

The legislative process is the backbone of a state built on solid institutions. Yet, due to the complexity of laws -- particularly tax law -- policies may lead to inequality and social tensions. In this study, we introduce a novel prototype system designed to address the issues of tax loopholes and tax avoidance. Our hybrid solution integrates a natural language interface with a domain-specific language tailored for planning. We demonstrate on a case study how tax loopholes and avoidance schemes can be exposed. We conclude that our prototype can help enhance social welfare by systematically identifying and addressing tax gaps stemming from loopholes.

And that means it's time not only to file your taxes, but also to watch out for scammers looking to con tax-paying citizens. In a new report out today, McAfee highlights the most popular tax-related scams and offers advice on how to protect yourself against them. Also: 5 ways AI can help you do your taxes - and 10 tax tasks you shouldn't trust it with Based on a new 2025 tax season survey conducted by McAfee, about 48% of people revealed that they, or someone they know, were contacted by a person claiming to be from the IRS or a state tax agency. The scammers used a variety of methods to target potential victims, including social media posts, emails, text messages, and phone calls. People ages 18 to 24 reported the highest number of successful scams, with 40% of them saying that they, or someone they know, had been scammed.

'America Reports' panelists Meghan Hays and David Avella discuss Democrats' ongoing criticism of DOGE cuts. Tax season is upon us, and while many of you are preparing to file your returns, it's crucial to be aware of the ever-evolving world of tax scams. This year, it's more important than ever to stay informed and on your guard. New research by McAfee, a cybersecurity company, has shed light on how common these scams are and what kind of scams they are, revealing some surprising trends and highlighting the importance of protecting yourself. GET SECURITY ALERTS & EXPERT TECH TIPS – SIGN UP FOR KURT'S THE CYBERGUY REPORT NOW Scam written on tax forms (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson) Before diving into the scams, let's look at how people are handling their taxes these days.