Filing taxes should be really easy and completely free. It is in most other developed countries. And in 2024, the Biden administration debuted a pilot program called Direct File that could have made tax filing easy and free for most American taxpayers, too.
Almost every president since Ronald Reagan has said that the government should create a simple electronic system for filing federal income taxes. The necessary technology has existed for decades. Many developed nations operate such tax filing systems. In countries including Japan and the Netherlands, the government handles the paperwork and then provides most taxpayers with a statement for review and approval.
Americans, by contrast, spend an average of 13 hours and $290 to file.
Why? Because tax preparation companies and Republican lawmakers have a shared interest in torturing taxpayers. The companies want to ensure that Americans remain dependent on their services. The Republicans want people to hate paying taxes.
In 2024, after decades of false starts, the Biden administration mustered the courage to defy that coalition. The Direct File program started small. It was limited to taxpayers with simple returns in a handful of states, processing 140,803 returns in its first year.
The Government Accountability Office, which audited the pilot, said it was a success that should be expanded.
Last year, the number of people using the program more than doubled. It processed 296,531 returns. An internal I.R.S. report concluded that Direct File “is beloved by its users.”
Unfortunately for American taxpayers, Direct File was not beloved by the tax preparation industry. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, which dominates the industry, collected almost $5 billion last year from Americans who sought its help to file their income tax returns. The company fought to preserve that business. The Trump administration acquiesced.
In killing the Direct File program, the administration insisted it had been little used and expensive to operate. It assured that outcome by making no effort to publicize the program in its second year. While the cost per user was high, at about $138, that would have declined as more people used the program. And no matter the number, it is a cost that should be borne by the government, not individual taxpayers.
The Trump administration says it has a better alternative: A “Free File” partnership with eight private tax preparation companies that allows some taxpayers to use basic versions of their software at no charge.
It’s a new chapter in a long-running con game. The Free File program, which dates back to 2002, allows the industry to claim that it’s possible to file taxes free while working to ensure that most people keep on paying.
The bottom 70 percent of taxpayers ranked by income are eligible to use the Free File program. That’s about 100 million households. Only about three million use it each year. Instead, every year, millions of people eligible for Free File pay to use virtually the same software from the same companies.
Intuit’s behavior has been particularly egregious. ProPublica reported in 2019 that the company had concealed the landing page for the Free File version of its product so that it was invisible to Google and other search engines. It also created a stalking horse called TurboTax: Free Edition, which pushed users to pay for add-ons. After it got caught, the company abandoned the Free File program.
[ed. Old news, I know. The government has all the information it needs to do your taxes (or they wouldn't be able to audit you). What isn't old news (to me anyway) were the underhanded tactics Intuit used to conceal and kill free tax filing efforts. Happy Tax Day, April 15, 2026.]
