IRS Notifies States There Will Be No Direct File Program For 2026
from the fin dept
We knew this was coming, but it doesn’t make it any less stupid. The road to the IRS’ Direct File program was long and hard-fought. We here at Techdirt have been talking about, and advocating for, something like the Direct File program for at least 15 years. The concept behind the program is a simple one. For a class of citizens with very simple income and tax payments, the IRS already has all the information it needs to process a tax return. In those cases, the IRS can simply mail the information it has to a taxpayer, ask them to sign off verifying the information is complete and accurate, and then process the return. The problem with this is that it cuts out the tax-prep industry that absolutely adores preying on these very same people to milk them for tax-prep services they don’t actually need.
For decades, the industry did exactly that. Even as the government partnered with private tax preparation companies like Intuit to provide federally backed “free” tax-prep websites and platforms, those same companies did everything they could to hide those free services and, in lieu of that, try to sell add-on services to those who were supposed to be able to file for free. While this eventually led to massive FTC fines for Intuit, this was the Faustian bargain that came from years and years of lobbying: The government would work with private industry for free filing programs in exchange for those same companies getting the government to line vulnerable citizens up like cattle headed to slaughter.
The IRS’ Direct File program came directly in the aftermath of the shady shit companies like Intuit did. It piloted in 2023, was a resounding success, and went live in 12 states in 2024. In April of this year, reports of Trump’s plans to end the program filtered into the news, even as the reviews by users of Direct File were overwhelmingly positive. Then, in August, IRS Commissioner Billy Long, himself a tax-prep industry player, said the program would be gone.
And, if you were holding onto any hope that this administration would keep a program in place that citizens love and ultimately reduces the overhead on the IRS, consider your hopes dashed. The IRS has begun notifying the states that had Direct File programs that the program will not be available for 2026 tax filings.
In an email sent from the IRS to 25 states, the tax agency thanked them for collaborating and noted that “no launch date has been set for the future.”
“IRS Direct File will not be available in Filing Season 2026,” says the Monday email, obtained by Nextgov/FCW and confirmed by multiple sources. It follows reports that the program was ending and Trump’s former tax chief, Billy Long, remarking over the summer that the service was “gone.”
Instead, that whole big beautiful bill we have heard so much about contained directions for the IRS to once again partner with private industry in a Free File program. The exact situation we were in that led to so much outrage at the behavior of those private companies, which in turn led to the creation of Direct File to begin with. This is simply winding the clock backwards to something people hated and calling it “progress.”
“It’s not surprising since the Trump administration sabotaged Direct File all through this year’s filing season, at the urging of tax prep monopolies like TurboTax,” Adam Ruben, the vice president of the Economic Security Project, told Nextgov/FCW. “Trump’s billionaire friends get favors while honest hardworking Americans will pay more to file their taxes.”
This isn’t something that can even be argued, honestly. It’s exactly what is happening. And, frankly, actions like this put the lie to Donald Trump’s claim to be fighting for the “little guy”. It’s all a bullshit grift, you see, with middlemen who are as wealthy as they are needlessly having Americans queued up to be conned.
This was a good program. The people who used it liked it. No serious negative consequence was experienced in its use.
And Trump did away with it so that mega-corporations like Intuit can continue skimming money from citizens in order to tell the IRS what it already knows.
Filed Under: convenience, direct file, fuck you taxpayers, irs, taxes
Companies: intuit
Comments on “IRS Notifies States There Will Be No Direct File Program For 2026”
Well, this helps people who aren’t rich. Of course Trump and the republicans would kill it.
Well, I for one believe in the free market, so when I fulfill my financial obligations, I always try to find a third party who can take an additional cut in order to ensure that I’m paying the premium rate for my Freedom™. When I go to a Burger King restaurant, I walk inside the lobby, sit at at table, and order an Uber Eats delivery driver to drive over and pick up my order thirty minutes later and deliver it to my table, like every true American patriot! Direct File is pinko commie satanism!
Re:
i hear this in the Dos Equis guy voice.
What’s a derogatory word for someone or a group of someones who create artificial problems/obstacles (e.g. laws, shitty adverts) so that they can extort money out of people? Like Crassus starting fires and then offering to extinguish them for the low low price of your house?
Re:
I think “grifter” fits the bill.
Re:
Extortionist is the word that comes to mind.
Apparently that’s a crime in some countries.
Re: Re:
What countries would those be?
Asking for a friend.
Re:
“Republican”
Re:
“Rent-seekers” is technically two words, but I think it fits.
Re:
Republican?
Shame
This is really embarrassing for the US. Here at the southern tip of Africa we don’t even have the hassle of having something mailed that has to be signed and returned. Once a year I log on to eFiling, confirm the details they already have, and click submit. I even generally get a small rebate each time. It takes less than half an hour. And it’s been like this for at least 10 years!
But as MrWilson says – I’m probably in some pinko commie satanism situation or something.
I love it. Trump’s nonsense is setting the stage for a VERY bleak Christmas for most Americans, and now a trying tax season to follow. By the time election day rolls around, his approval rating will be in the toilet, and the DNC will sweep into power in Congress. Next comes Impeachment #3, and THIS time it sticks because Cocaine Mitch won’t be able to force the Senate to save his rancid bacon.
Re:
Hopefully this will drive the majority of the US population to vote in the DNC primaries as well.
Seems to have worked out pretty well for THIS election year, after all!
Re: Complacency kills campaigns
I agree that’s what should happen, but never underestimate the stupidity of the american public and the ability for fanatics to overlook any amount of their own suffering if it means the hated Other is suffering too and/or they can scapegoat the Other for what one of their own did to them.
The dems may have plenty to work with with a rightly pissed public but it’s still on them to use it to get themselves in office as opposed to falling to complacency or worse thinking this is a good time to ‘reach across the isle’ under the mistaken belief that the republicans will be more likely to operate in good faith if things are going poorly for them.
Could be worse, IRS could simply take a random amount of money from people accounts. Maybe it’ll for 2027.
Just flush already
“By the time election day rolls around, his approval rating will be in the toilet…”
I can tell you haven’t looked at his approval rating recently…
But the source code still exists
Presumably because the IRS knew this would be coming, they released much of the source code for this program in May. So, while they’ll no longer accept “direct” filings, one could use that code to create a program that calculates taxes while exactly matching the IRS calculations; the results could then be printed and mailed in.
Doing this has the potential to make Intuit irrelevant (at least in the field of tax preparation), at which point they’d no longer have any influence over policies such as direct filing. Maybe the code could even be given back to the IRS, after some years of external maintenance, when Direct File comes back.
More work for the IRS
Perhaps I will mail in my 60-page return instead of filing electronically.
Re:
If you owe money, why not? Attach your payment as a check, and, with the reduced IRS budget, you might make a few weeks of interest before they take the money. And there’s very little chance anyone will double-check your work, unless Trump’s angry at you.
And the odds say,
Who will or Wants to pay Taxes?
To bad we cant take Direct action to Stop payment to the Congress and the president.
Problem is they get paid FIRST, not LAST.
1) The Government is shut down by Republicans who are still collecting their paychecks.
2) The GOP has purged the Government of all non-partisan employees and gutted the IRS.
3) The GOP is spending your money without appropriations.
4) The GOP is stealing your money through tariffs that Speaker Johnson has literally ruled that the House will NOT hear bills about.
5) The GOP is destroying your monuments and historical buildings to make room for Trump’s ego.
6) The GOP is now making it more difficult and expensive to pay the taxes they want to illegally spend.
The solution: Don’t pay taxes anymore. Fuck the government. Fuck the GOP. If the law doesn’t matter to them, then there isn’t any reason for it to matter for anyone else.
They can’t unlawfully spend what they aren’t given.
Of course they’d destroy a program like that, if taxes are quick and easy to file then that’s a boon for those with less wealth and makes it slightly harder for the rich to exploit the system to keep as much of their money as possible, and since republicans hate both…
Over here in the socialist hell hole of the UK, the majority of people are on PAYE (pay as you earn).
Every payday my employer calculates how much tax I owe, deducts it from my pay, and pays it to the Government.