Posted on 04/16/2025 5:47:57 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Trump administration plans to eliminate the IRS’ Direct File program, an electronic system for filing tax returns directly to the agency for free, according to two people familiar with the decision.
The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency was credited by users with making tax filing easy, fast and economical. But Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use.
The program had been in limbo since the start of the Trump administration as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have slashed their way through the federal government. Musk posted in February on his social media site, X, that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as Direct File. […]
Direct File was rolled out as a pilot program in 2024 after the IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a “direct file” system as part of the money it received from the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by Biden in 2022. The Democratic administration spent tens of millions of dollars developing the program.
Last May, the agency announced that the program would be made permanent.
But the IRS has faced intense blowback to Direct File from private tax preparation companies that have made billions from charging people to use their software and have spent millions lobbying Congress. The average American typically spends about $140 preparing returns each year. …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
AP=Always Pffft
Cons - it’ll encourage activity in the black market to evade the sales tax.
You mean the colored market. 😉
Nope; that’s the “market of color”.
come after him based on what?
if that’s all he’s getting, he doesn’t have to file.
“Government: You have to log on to our site but in order to do that, we’ll need to first violate your privacy and you’ll have to give us all kinds of additional personal data about yourself that you won’t want to give us and there’s no guarantee that all that extra personal data you give us won’t end up in the hands of hackers who steal all that additional personal information you give us that actually ends up on a third-party server run by some corporation.”
I have no clue why folks are just plain too stupid to understand this very factual reality. Right now “ID.me” is doing that very same thing. It is a private third party service owned by a marketing firm in the UK. They are even cataloging facial recognition data banks.
“I do mine using pdf’s and mail it in. All fifty pages.”
It won’t be too long and they will stop accepting all mail filing. They are going to force us to use electronic filing period.
“That seems like just another way for Big Brother to instantly check and cross-check you.”
Not just Big Brother. Nothing done on the net is actually secure and can be breached/captured between you and them. It is actually more secure to send them through the mail or carrier pigeon.
Oh, yeah. Check out the author, BTW. Interesting hire there.
Very bad move. The optics can’t possibly be worth it.
I’ve been mailing my tax forms in for a bunch of years after I ran into headaches with the free file companies. I thought I’d try to use the the IRS Direct File this year because my state became eligible. I created an account, but they wanted me to upload my DL. That process failed, so it was back to mailing in my tax forms..
“but they wanted me to upload my DL. That process failed, so it was back to mailing in my tax forms..”
That was exactly what happened to a friend of mine who also tried that. It would not accept his upload...
How are free filing services “hard to use”? My daughter used FreeTaxUsa and did her first taxes is less than an hour. She said the IRS version was awful, and demanded she create an intrusive biometric ID called ID.me just to file, despite how little money she made.
“Very bad move. The optics can’t possibly be worth it.”
Once again... They are getting a little overzealous with this stuff. The radical extremism is going to be a huge problem for Trump and Conservatives in the end... Some wise and common sense compromises absolutely have to be required with some of this. Can’t go over board to the point of even harming your own base... And they are starting to...
I totally agree.
It’s almost as if the Establishment inertia is so great that only real firebrands can break through for any change, but such firebrands are not only blinded, but also actually drawn, to the over-the-top optical disaster.
My taxes are relatively simple to figure out. I don’t need tax software to do them. A couple of the free file companies I used in the past required me to fill out forms and documents that I didn’t have to submit with the mail in forms. My refunds are rather meager and some years I have to pay a small amount. If I had a big refund due, maybe I would be more inclined to put up with the aggravation of filing on line.
I used to be able to buy software and keep them on my computer(s) and the install disks on a shelf… now everything’s a darn monthly subscription.
Most of the problem is senseless radical extreme support for “ALL” of it whether it actually makes sense or not. You can’t just go scorched earth with ALL of it. There needs to be some careful forethought. Because once it is screwed up we will never get it back. And if we do get it back it won’t be correct due to government greed, incompetence, and stupidity. I am right now looking at the extremism eliminating the USPS, Social Security, and Medicare at the rate they are going. They are not hitting the brakes on some of this stuff when they really do need to. We are going to “support” our way right into our own demise with our own radical extremism.
Mine are more complicated... I am in business...
I am an extremist in the number of illegals I want repatriated to their home countries, which is why I don’t want needlessly controversial onesy-twosy cases in the spotlight. Efficient mass roundups are needed.
And why are we expending any resources at all on trying to strongarm colleges into “auditing” the views of their students. (I think we know the answer to that, but let’s not get sidetracked today.)
The El Salvador prison porn with Noem strutting about is shameless and counterproductive.
At some time we have to look at why so much noise and so little action is being generated—and whether Trump is really going for his version of the old RINO, Gang of Eight, we’ll make them touch down at home before they can come back legally, faux deportation.
Thank you for putting up with the BS. As a retiree, I can generally crank out my state and federal taxes in about 4 to 5 hours on paper. If I have to double that time to submit my taxes on line, eff it...
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