Tax bods characterize it more as a brainstorming session, says Elon's unit wasn't involved

Congressional Democrats are again demanding answers from a federal agency over whether DOGE's latest tech makeover could put taxpayer data at risk.

The latest please-explain-this-DOGE-activity letter letter [PDF] landed yesterday on the desk of the Internal Revenue Service's acting inspector general, Heather Hill. It is from Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and perennial DOGE gadfly.

This time, Connolly is demanding answers about a 30-day "hackathon" reportedly launched last month by DOGE staffers embedded at the IRS, in partnership with Palantir. According to an April Wired report citing anonymous sources, the event involved DOGE, Palantir staffers, and IRS engineers in a rushed attempt to overhaul core tax systems.

For the uninitiated, a hackathon is typically a brief, focused coding sprint - measured in days, not weeks - meant for prototyping, not federal system overhauls. In this case, Wired reported the event ...