The headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

The Internal Revenue Service, the federal agency Americans probably most love to hate, is in DOGE’s sights.

You might want to hold off on the celebration, though. It’s hard to tell what’s worse about this latest adventure by billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald J. Trump: the potential for a massive invasion of privacy, or the almost certain loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.

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Let’s start with the money.

As part of the wide-ranging cuts throughout the government by Mr. Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” DOGE last week announced 6,000 job cuts at the IRS. While that may save some money in the short run, it means the agency will collect much less money than it’s supposed to for years to come because of a diminished ability to go........

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