By Raphael Satter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration has pulled the plug on a team of tech-savvy civil servants that helped build the IRS’s free tax-filing service and revamped websites across government, according to an email sent overnight to employees.
In an email to employees of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) seen by Reuters, the GSA’s Director of Technology Transformation Services Thomas Shedd said the team — known as 18F — had been identified as “non critical.”
A GSA source said the roughly 90 18F employees were immediately locked out of their devices.
First launched in 2014 under former President Barack Obama, the 18F team was housed within GSA and helped federal agencies improve their digital services.
It was tasked with improving federal website accessibility, modernizing technology, enhancing data access, and making the government’s customer service experience more user-friendly.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who leads the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency team known as DOGE, earlier this month responded to a post on X that called 18F a “far left government-wide computer office” by saying the group has been “deleted.”
The IRS’s free direct-file tax website is currently still online.
GSA did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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