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Title: The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying To Kill Just Got Open
Sourced

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/04/1447...

An anonymous reader shares a report: The IRS open sourced much of its
incredibly popular Direct File software as the future of the free tax filing
program is at risk of being killed by Intuit's lobbyists and Donald Trump's
megabill. Meanwhile, several top developers who worked on the software have
left the government and joined a project to explore the "future of tax
filing" in the private sector. Direct File is a piece of software created by
developers at the US Digital Service and 18F, the former of which became DOGE
and is now unrecognizable, and the latter of which was killed by DOGE. Direct
File has been called a "free, easy, and trustworthy" piece of software that
made tax filing "more efficient." About 300,000 people used it last year as
part of a limited pilot program, and those who did gave it incredibly
positive reviews, according to reporting by Federal News Network. But because
it is free and because it is an example of government working, Direct File
and the IRS's Free File program more broadly have been the subject of years
of lobbying efforts by financial technology giants like Intuit, which makes
TurboTax. DOGE sought to kill Direct File, and currently, there is language
in Trump's massive budget reconciliation bill that would kill Direct File.
Experts say that "ending [the] Direct File program is a gift to the tax-prep
industry that will cost taxpayers time and money."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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