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.
How big of a check did Intuit write to his campaign? Only industrialized nation to have this nonsense. They send you bill in Europe.
Unfortunately distrust of the government permeates American society. Sometimes it’s well founded. Americans love to try to cheat the government from top to bottom, and that includes taxes. And there’s the whole lobby of tax preparers and filers that don’t want the simplicity of government issued prepared tax bills. So to sum up - “I don’t trust the government, I want the ability to avoid telling them about the car I sold for a huge profit, and all the tax preparers want to keep billing me to do my taxes.”