Department of Government Efficiency representative Sam Corcos says the Internal Revenue Service has bloated costs that need to be slashed.
In an interview on The Ingraham Angle on Fox on Thursday, Corcos said the scale of the problem facing the IRS is “hard to really grasp.” Corcos was joined on the program by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.
“A huge part of our government is collecting taxes. We cannot perform the basic functions of tax collection without paying a toll to all these contractors. We really have to figure out how to get out of this hole. We’re in a really deep hole right now,” Corcos added.
The DOGE advisor said he plans to focus on the IRS modernization program alongside other operations and budgets during his six-month timeline. According to Corcos, the agency is already decades behind schedule and over budget by $15 billion.
“The IRS has some pretty legacy infrastructure…and the challenge has been how do we migrate that to a modern system?” he asked.
Corcos comes from the private sector and is the co-founder and CEO of Levels, an AI-powered app that helps users track how their nutrition impacts their health. According to Corcos, many major banks that used to run on systems similar to the IRS have since modernized.
“We’re now 35 years into this program. If you ask them now, it’s five years away, and it’s been five years away since 1990. It was supposed to be delivered in 1996, and it’s still five years away,” he said.
Bessent, who was recently confirmed as U.S. Treasury Secretary, stressed the IRS’s reliance on consultancy groups.
“Many of the employees are fantastic. It’s this consultant group. They’re like a boa constrictor. They’re like a python… They’ve constricted themselves around our government, and the costs are unbelievable. They’re being passed on to the American taxpayer,” he said.
According to Corcos, of the $3.5 billion the IRS budgets for operations and maintenance, around 80% goes to paying contractors and licenses.
Bessent says some Democrats have been pushing back against the DOGE initiative to trim wasteful spending at the agency.
“The entrenched interests, the consultants, the Democrats, mainstream media, they just want to blow this project out of the water… This is the opposite of government efficiency, not elimination, not extinction,” said Bessent.