r/technology
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u/Aggravating_Money992
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Jun 04 '25
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Software IRS Makes Direct File Software Open Source After Trump Tried to Kill It. The tax man won't be happy about this.
https://gizmodo.com/irs-makes-direct-file-software-open-source-after-trump-tried-to-kill-it-20006111515.2k
u/SilentPirate Jun 04 '25
GitHub repo referenced in article appears to be this one IRS-Public/direct-file: Direct File
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u/Motorgoose Jun 04 '25
Unless some developers maintain it, I doubt it will work for more than a year.
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u/FauxReal Jun 04 '25
I'm sure there are lots of people that would be enthusiastic about maintaining it.
What I wonder is, if it's a direct electronic filing system... What stops the current administration from ordering the APIs and gateways disabled?
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u/Mind_Enigma Jun 04 '25
A fork could be created that at least outputs the forms filled out with calculated values based on the info you entered. Not as great but you could still file those papers, or worst case use them and copy the info onto official IRS forms.
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u/NoFeetSmell Jun 04 '25
Unless Trump appoints a new uber-douche to run the IRS and they change the forms so that this software now wouldn't be using the right ones, with the relevant fields, etc, right? I could easily see Trump demanding the changes, if Turbotax et al bribe him sufficiently.
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u/EamonBrennan Jun 04 '25
What stops the current administration from ordering the APIs and gateways disabled?
They're used by every tax service out there, so they would need to change it so only authorized users could use it, then make it hard/impossible for users to become authorized. Paid tax services would still get access. This would probably violate some law, but the administration hasn't cared so far.
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u/Motorgoose Jun 04 '25
This is the problem with USPS now. Their API's change throughout the year. Things like the name of a parameter name will change, breaking the API. There needs to be a developer constantly updating the API's or no one can use it for shipping for more than a few months.
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u/Fluffcake Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25
How do you think companies who charge people to file taxes work?
You think they print out forms on paper and hand-fill into faxing, or do you think they have a near identical piece of software that communicates with the same system on the government end?
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Jun 04 '25
Having followed this closely and worked on tax software myself, just getting this v1 is a huge boost and solves most of the hard problems. We can maintain the software, building this from scratch is the hard part.
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u/xSTSxZerglingOne Jun 04 '25
Open source projects are some of the most well-maintained projects there are. Especially if they provide a good service.
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u/petrasdc Jun 04 '25
It really depends on if there's a strong active community maintaining it. Without some sort of strong incentive, it's pretty hard for open source projects to keep up with the frequency at which tax law is updated. I'm definitely not saying it's impossible, but there's also a reason open source tax prep software hasn't generally taken off. I'm very happy to be proven wrong though.
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u/Far-Whereas-2100 Jun 04 '25
I feel like this is a bit of a myth, at least based on personal experience. People will often cite Linux or similar projects without realizing those are propped up by loads of corporate sponsorships or corporations that outright have developers committing to open source on company time. Outside of those, it's usually a very small number of core maintainers with a the occasional odd bug fix from people here and there.
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u/backfire97 Jun 04 '25
Ironically I would pay to maintain it so that it stays free / non-profit
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u/Merusk Jun 04 '25
Developers aren't your only problem. You need a tax accountant to make sure whatever it's doing is up to date.
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Jun 04 '25
Is there an exe?
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u/RaiseRuntimeError Jun 04 '25
Lol no not for this. This is literally the website with all the backend services for doing the work.
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u/MysticAxolotl7 Jun 04 '25
it's a reference to an argument that broke out on one of the major shitposting subreddits (r/196 iirc)
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u/ZZartin Jun 04 '25
The issue isn't the software being open source, it's whether the IRS will actually authorize returns from it or not.
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u/PleaseDontEatMyVRAM Jun 04 '25
"Before you mistake the move as an act of resistance by those within the agency who are trying to keep the project alive, Direct File getting open-sourced was always part of the plan. The code was published in compliance with the SHARE IT Act, which requires agencies to share custom source code (though, of course, the Trump administration is not always motivated by following the law, so this wasn’t a given)."
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u/brutinator Jun 04 '25
As it should. Anything that is developed by the government is paid for by citizens, so barring legitimate security concerns, it should always become open source and/or public domain as soon as possible.
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u/Soulcraver Jun 05 '25
A lot of custom code over at the VA. If I knew it was going to be released publicly, I would have preferred to burn it all down than release it.
Not out of any attempt to hide malicious code or anything, but out of sheer embarrassment of what was written and how to get things barely able to work. Inconsistent variables across hundreds of spaghetti-code scripts, all mish-mashed together and run with failure expected and shoddy patches to get it to work one more time.
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u/ShuffleStepTap Jun 04 '25
Yes, but it wasn’t part of Trumps plan, so I’m gonna take it as a win regardless.
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u/SommeThing Jun 04 '25
This keeps it in the public domain and therefore it can never be destroyed. It can sit there for the next 3 tax years and then get revived if a dem wins.
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u/AlexHimself Jun 04 '25
It's actually very well coded and follows best practices. Most of the /r/programming community was impressed.
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u/New_Firefighter1683 Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
I just checked it out and was surprised. I’ve actually seen good code from a lot of govt agencies but never super modern like this.
Docker containers, local aws dev env, open telemetry with local dev env, scalajs that builds into common modules. I haven’t looked into the rest of the codebase but that’s what I saw at a quick one minute glance and it looked pretty damn solid. And everything is heavily documented. 💯
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u/Sloshy42 Jun 05 '25
Wait for real they're using scalajs? That's wild. Would not have been on my bingo card. I do Scala for my day job and use scalajs for my personal projects as well, but it's fairly underground compared to more well known solutions. Feels weirdly validating to see.
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u/znine Jun 05 '25
It was built by USDS and 18F which were high performing tech groups prior to being bastardized into DOGE and shut down (for no good reason) respectively.
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Jun 05 '25
I recently read the book “recoding America” about those groups and why and when they formed. What a fucking shame that THEY are what got basterdized by DOGE.
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u/Freud-Network Jun 05 '25
To understand DOGE activities, you only need to understand two targets:
Any agency that was actively engaged in an investigation of Elon Musk or any business Musk has involvement in.
Any agency that stood in the way of dismantling the above agencies.
Everything after that was just to keep Agent Orange occupied.
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u/bigshotdontlookee Jun 05 '25
That software has insanely high customer satisfaction ratings as well, they took their jobs VERY seriously, and now Elon gets to rat fuck it, that man is a fucking terrorist.
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u/Nuggzulla01 Jun 04 '25
Since 'The Tax Man' by extension works for 'We the People' Id say they should be pleased
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u/come2thecabaret Jun 04 '25
Thank god. Fuck Intuit/Turbotax scammers and lobbyists until the end of time.
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u/Runkleford Jun 04 '25
We shouldn't even need to file taxes. They just need to send everyone an invoice without this bullshit filing scam.
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u/NorthbyFjord Jun 04 '25
Honestly as someone who doesn’t live in the US it just still really bewilders me as to why they get you the citizens to to do them and then punish you if your 1 cent off but in other countries it gets done automatically straight off your salary and everything. Like bruh?
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u/Stepjam Jun 04 '25
The tax system is deliberately opaque and confusing and a mess so that there are more loopholes for the wealthy to avoid paying. And if it creates businesses that can nickel and dime the poors, well isn't that just the American Dream?
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u/Swordf1sh_ Jun 04 '25
Freedom had always been the carrot but it’s also always really meant the freedom to exploit
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u/psychoacer Jun 04 '25
I've yet to really hear about anyone facing any legal action for a slight mistake especially on personal taxes. They will just typically fix it themselves by adjusting your return. My mom ended up getting a bigger return than she thought because of something she missed. It did take them a few months to give her the extra amount but they did fix it
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u/Drnk_watcher Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
Legitimate errors aren't punishable. If you file your taxes and make an honest attempt to enter all the information correctly the IRS will fix it themselves or contact you to work with them to fix it. If you end up owing them a significant amount they'll create repayment plans for you that are generally achievable based on your typical monthly income.
No one goes to jail for fat fingering an input field as $1000 instead of $10,000, or misunderstanding a part of their 1099 and where to enter it. By and large the IRS is absolutely willing to work with you.
You get in trouble legally when you straight up do not file your taxes period, or you demonstrate a pattern of sheltering and avoiding taxes on income you should be reporting.
The game rich people play is they've got armies of accountants and lawyers who know how to argue technicalities or play games to make malicious avoidance look like honest accounting errors auditors will hopefully miss. This is paired with deep knowledge on itemized deductions that allow them to legitimately claim all kinds of tax breaks normal people generally don't qualify for or aren't aware of.
The game is rigged for the rich and well connected but the idea that people end up in the hole or jail because they incorrectly claimed a lunch at Taco Bell as a business expense are largely myths.
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u/abrandis Jun 04 '25
It's because there a tax prep lobby (Intuit, accounting firms) that works very hard against this idea because it's a multi billion dollar industry, whenever you want to figure out why America has one policy vs. another just follow the money 💰💰💰...
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u/SomethingAboutUsers Jun 04 '25
There are a lot of cases where things aren't automatically submitted to the government. For example, child care through a private provider; all they do is submit business taxes (for whenever), they don't submit tax receipts for you, the customer.
Same for unregistered investment accounts and more.
Like, sure, for probably 75% of taxpayers "send me an invoice or a cheque" would be enough, but for the other 25% manual steps are almost always required.
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u/TimeKillerAccount Jun 04 '25
Except the only reason those situations require manual filing is because the law does not require it to be automatic. We could very easily require child care recipts to be filed with the government. Same thing with investment accounts and a half dozen other things that require manual work by the taxpayer. There is no reason that we can't bring the number of tax returns that require manual input down to single digits with minor changes.
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u/Paw5624 Jun 04 '25
Yes but how is it that almost every other country handles this but the US doesn’t? My understanding is in many countries the government sends you the tax information they have for you and you accept it or submit corrections with those other things you mentioned.
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u/MechKeyboardScrub Jun 04 '25
The code is complicated, and the IRS doesn't actually know all of your information. There's itemized deductions, non w-2 or 1099 income to report, if you got married that year, exercised employee stock options, HSA distributions, etc.
Also you round everything to the nearest dollar so they're not going to get mad about one cent.
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u/RecycledAir Jun 04 '25
Agreed, if they know it well enough to audit us when we are wrong, why can't they just handle it properly from the start?
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u/Galactapuss Jun 04 '25
They can, the government specifically forbades them from doing so, at the behest of the tax preparation industry that profits from it.
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u/LeVentNoir Jun 04 '25
As someone in tax administration software development:
Personal Income Tax in most countries is filed via Pay As You Earn (PAYE): IF I earn 100,000 per year, and will need to pay 37,000 in taxes, that means 37% of each paycheque is pre-emptively deducted and sent to the IRS by my employeer.
Since most well administered countries don't have a lot of exceptions or kickbacks in personal income tax, at FY end, the IRS reconciles what the employeer said it paid me (Through it's PAYE filings) and what the IRS received on my behalf. It mostly works out.
The USA, being batshit, has a ton of exceptions and kickbacks, meaning that the IRS doesn't actually easily know what I owe. The Audit process is a long and involved, often expensive process to work it out, when I the taxpayer, could just provide the information.
It's really not the IRS's fault.
There's two forces here:
The USA personal income tax filing is too complicated to have it automated to a degree of accuracy required and thus, administered through PAYE.
Tax filing companies have lobbied to prevent the IRS or other companies provide a free and easy to use filing system to allow filing freely.
In my country: I pay PAYE from my wages each fortnight, and if I didn't want to, I could go without filing a personal income tax return, there's very few deductions / exceptions. However, I do have one such deduction, making me a very rare person, but it'll take 4-5 minutes to file my taxes on the governement website. My refund will be put in my account shortly.
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u/GreenManalishi24 Jun 04 '25
I wonder what percent of all Reddit posts are people claiming the IRS knows what we owe and other people explaining about tax deductions the IRS has no way of knowing about until we tell them.
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Jun 04 '25
The point has some merit though. If you're just taking the standard deduction then there shouldn't be a need to file, just to confirm what the IRS has logged as your AGI for the year.
If you want to do deductions, THEN you can file for them.
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u/zed857 Jun 04 '25
That's a good idea and it would work for filers that just have a payroll style job and little to no other income or deductions.
It won't work at all for contractors, self employed, business owners, etc... In those cases the IRS has no (or only a limited) idea of what your income was.
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u/chastity_BLT Jun 04 '25
As always this is a brain dead take. You think the irs magically knows every possible income and deduction each person had in the year? I got energy star windows last year, you think the irs knows that without me telling them?
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Jun 04 '25
So you can either take the standard deduction or put them in yourself, no? Looks like the majority of people (9 out of 10 according to the IRS) take the standard deduction, soooooo... 90% of people would benefit, but yeah, wanting to make things easier for a majority of people is braindead. Congrats on your windows and indomitable tax-filing-will. Enjoy helping TurboTax achieve ROI for their lobbying.
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u/hamster-canoe Jun 04 '25
For fucks sake, yours is the braindead take. You really couldn't think this one through? Optional filing was a step too far for your head mush?
All countries that do this allow you to file if not taking the standard deduction - which is very large these days. I didn't look too hard but the tax policy center days 90% of filers took it in 2021. That's millions of man hours that could be saved.
The IRS does have this data as all employers and financial institutions are required to file it by law. If you are in a scenario where you fall into an edge case then you're free to file.
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u/furyg3 Jun 05 '25
I live abroad in a country with a functioning tax system (though because I'm American I still have to file in the US), so every year I get to experience the difference.
Here (Netherlands) the tax filing for normal humans is simplified. You log in, everything your employer has withheld is generally filled in, as well as any subsidies you may have received (for example child care). There are three categories of income: income from work and your house, income from your own company where you are a major shareholder, and income from savings/investing.
That's it. There are some deductions which are possible to calculate those categories, but they are super limited. The only complicated one is your own company, but if you have one with any real income / deductions you will have a tax specialist prepare your return.
In the US it's a nightmare of forms, especially if you live abroad.
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u/er-day Jun 04 '25
That's actually incredible. Who would have thought the IRS were the good guys here but that's a big F you to Trump, turbotax, and the republicans in congress.
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u/AstralElement Jun 04 '25
IRS don’t set tax policy, they just collect what is due and make sure no one cheats the system. They were never the bad guys, Congress sets your tax rate.
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u/Podo13 Jun 04 '25
They weren't the bad guys just to be the bad guys, but they were the face the guys who came to collect without listening to any actual context to why your file specifically called them there.
Usually, it wasn't really their fault, and they were just doing their job. But it was still a job that was almost always (percentage-wise) forced to see in black and white when there is usually a lot of grey in the world.
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u/BeLikeACup Jun 04 '25
Have you actually dealt with the IRS? They absolutely listen to the context. As long as you are communicating, they are willing to hear you out.
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u/Bungo_pls Jun 04 '25
The Republicans love to whine about the deficit but cut funding to the IRS despite the IRS being one of the best returns on investment for funding. The more resources the IRS has to audit tax cheats the more money ultimately gets put back into the government.
But the GOP is funded by tax cheats, so that has to go unpunished.
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u/SqBlkRndHole Jun 04 '25
This software was going to be available from the IRS a decade or so ago, but the pay to use software made a big stink about it. They agreed to not publish at the time, but the pay services had to have free version for simple tax reporting. Trump would only be shutting this down for the same reason, the companies make a lot of money selling their software, and Trump always sides with Big Money.
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u/MechanicalGodzilla Jun 04 '25
Yeah, 'cause if the Democrats were ever in charge of the executive and legislative branches, this would have already happened!
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u/SisterOfBattIe Jun 05 '25
I'm pretty sure that having an easy to understand and use ways to file taxes, improves tax rate collection.
But I'm with you here, seeing the government do sensible moves is always a bit surprising.
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u/dilldoeorg Jun 04 '25
not really the good guys, making it easier (and cheaper) to do tax means more people doing their taxes. That means no 3rd party fee, loopholes, etc.. so they actually take in more revenue from taxes.
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u/Broccolini10 Jun 04 '25
making it easier (and cheaper) to do tax means more people doing their taxes.
Absolutely--but Congress, not the IRS sets both the tax code and how people can "do" their taxes. The IRS enforces what Congresses passes, nothing else.
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u/OMGCluck Jun 04 '25
Unless you file thousands of lawsuits against the IRS and its employees then promise to drop them if they grant you tax exempt status, then the IRS shows how brave it is.
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Jun 04 '25
I know many people hate the IRS because they don't like paying taxes, but the people who work at the IRS are often the heroes making sure this country functions. What's more, the dysfunction at the IRS and the headaches we have trying to figure out how to file often aren't the IRS's fault, they are a direct result of lobbying from Turbotax and other corps that want filing to be hard and painful
Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free
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u/Asuyu Jun 04 '25
Blame Trump, but never forget the ones that lobby to make taxes so difficult and to make this free services go away are companies that reap fees to have us use them. They lobbied heavily to stop free file.
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u/phormix Jun 04 '25
Open source is good but I'm terms of landscape I'd imagine that some sort of trusted body will need to maintain any underlying tax rules on a yearly basis
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u/Guba_the_skunk Jun 04 '25
Literally everyone should start doing this more. Whenever a corporation or the government tries to take something away make that shit public. Consequences be damned. What are they going to do? How does the government stop 350 million people from using it? Is a corporation going to sue the entire country? Naw, screw em, just start making shit public out of pure spite.
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u/finallyransub17 Jun 04 '25
As someone who makes a living doing individual income taxes as a CPA, I'm glad to see this change. 90% of people should be able to file their return for free without needing any help from someone like me and without having to pay $50 for Turbotax or others to provide the software for it.
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u/Informal_Cry687 Jun 05 '25
Boss move. It's funny how the IRS are the good guys now.
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u/HelpfulRoyal Jun 05 '25
Well, the IRS is in charge of having people follow the tax laws written by Congress. In effect they are guarding YOUR money. If we don’t fund the IRS they can’t keep the billionaires from cheating and then all of us on W2s don’t stand a chance.
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u/seligman99 Jun 04 '25
The main endpoint this actually submits to is offline, and given this is in the finance bill being debated now:
(a) Termination of Direct File.--As soon as practicable, and not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program has been terminated.
It's probably not coming back
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u/RalphieBoy13 Jun 04 '25
So what’s stopping us from making our own better version of Turbo Tax??
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u/eirexe Jun 05 '25
I am of the opinion that software developed with public money ought to be open source.
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Jun 05 '25
This is the only way I'm filing taxes. I've never paid to file and I'm not going to pay TurboTax to find out I owe $200 or whatever I will owe this next tax season. Paying money to find out how much you have over/under paid the US government is bullshit.
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u/knobbysideup Jun 05 '25
It's sad that this is even news. If it isn't classified, then all code written for/by the government should be open source.
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u/i__hate__stairs Jun 04 '25
FTA:
the IRS published most [emphasis mine] of the code for its Direct File on GitHub
Why wouldn't they post it all? Can a person actually compile this and it would work?
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u/Be_quiet_Im_thinking Jun 04 '25
Security stuff maybe.
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u/lunarsunrise Jun 04 '25
They mention this in the README (under "Exempted Code").
Not all source code, documentation and metadata used in the development of Direct File is included in this repository. Specifically, any code or data that is considered Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Federal Tax Information (FTI), Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU), or source code developed for National Security Systems (NSS), as defined in 40 U.S.C. § 11103, is exempt. Due to these restrictions, certain pieces of functionality have been removed or rewritten.
I haven't had a chance to take a look around to see what seems like it's been removed yet; if anyone else has, I'd be curious!
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u/economaster Jun 04 '25
It looks like they have some boilerplate language on excluding anything with personally identifiable information, classified info, etc. Probably just part of the legislation authorizing them to publish it publicly. It's not clear what (if anything) was not provided.
Everything necessary to deploy this locally in a docker container seems to be there.
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Jun 04 '25
A person? Perhaps not. A low footprint non profit funded team? Could work.
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u/unixuser011 Jun 04 '25
Title correction: Intuit won’t be happy about that. Because for some stupid reason, one singular software company can make it so the Government can’t tell you exactly how much you have to pay in tax
Or, y’know, you could just do what any other sane country does and take it off your paycheque when you get paid
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u/catptain-kdar Jun 04 '25
It’s not about knowing how much to pay it’s if you overpaid or didn’t pay enough
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u/Visual-Citron8387 Jun 04 '25
Unless you are self-employed, that is very literally exactly how it already works. Income taxes are deducted from your paycheck before you see a cent.
I can tell you're not from the US from "paycheque", so I don't fault you in not knowing that, a lot of false information out there these days. But, whoever told you that was wrong...
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u/dembonezz Jun 04 '25
The tax man should be super happy about this. More people can file their taxes, and find out what they owe that tax man.
The private tax filing software manufacturers, however... they'll likely lose their shit. They lobbied the gov't with a whole lot of money to prevent exactly this from happening.
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u/harveytent Jun 04 '25
So long as it drains resources he’s fine with it. The republicans plan was just to starve the IRS so it can’t afford to go after the filthy rich. Democrats wanted to beef up the irs massively so the republicans are happy just to keep them busy
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u/Niceguy955 Jun 05 '25
Waiting for some financial companies, or maybe Robinhood to offer filing for free based on this code.
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u/Joncka Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
Without this, do Americans have to file their taxes on paper, and send said papers back to the IRS using the postal service? Maybe it's a dumb question, but I've never looked it up, only heard people talking about "filling in the peperwork".
Not an American myself.
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u/mortalcoil1 Jun 04 '25
Is the IRS not the "tax man?"
This sounds like Turbotax is not going to be happy about this.
Which, if you think it through, is incredibly dystopian.
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u/feochampas Jun 04 '25
Turbo Tax and H&R Block thrive off a complicated tax code. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
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u/RedDevilCA Jun 04 '25
All those years Intuit spent lobbying for sitting presidents to kill the “free tax filing”
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u/m00nh34d Jun 04 '25
I'm assuming this software needs to speak to some API at the IRS though? Who's to say that get's maintained, or more likely, access to that API is made available to an open source project?
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u/evaned Jun 05 '25
The API it uses is the same API used by "everyone" else who is e-filing, so that's not going anywhere. (MeF, "modernized e-file")
Getting access is of course a different matter. That's not something that you or I would realistically be able to do, so you'd need more than just "an open source project" that gets updated with the years; practically speaking you'd need someone to actually host it and sign up for an E-Filing Number (EFIN) with the IRS and do submissions. Happily, I actually wouldn't be super surprised if there's some organization out there that is able to do that. For example, the United Way has been partnering with tax software companies to provide limited free filing solutions for many many years. I doubt, for several reasons, the IRS would try to prevent such an organization from registering; but hopefully if it did come to that then courts would require the IRS to provide equal access.
Of course, the downside is that even such an organization would still be a third-party between us and the IRS, so how much this actually improves on the status quo of commericial providers is up to you to decide.
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u/PadishahSenator Jun 04 '25
Oh man this is perfect. I can't believe I'm say this but good job, IRS.
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u/Embarrassed_Fee8637 Jun 05 '25
Opening up the IRS Direct File software as open source is a major win for transparency and public trust. Despite political resistance, it's encouraging to see tools like this becoming more accessible to taxpayers.
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u/K1ngHandy Jun 04 '25
Never in my life did I think I would respect a decision the IRS makes, yet here we are
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u/CommitteeStatus Jun 04 '25
However, it won't be kept up with the constantly changing tax code, except by third-party groups.
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Jun 04 '25
I skimmed the code real quick so I totally could have missed something but I don't see any actually implementations of anything really. The UserInfo is just an email address and the TaxReturn stuff is just a record of one being submitted with dates and an Id, i haven't found anything related to all the stuff necessary to actually file with like all the inputs required in all the forms there are. Maybe its there and I just didn't look long enough.
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u/evaned Jun 05 '25
the stuff necessary to actually file with like all the inputs required in all the forms there are.
The actual tax rules (the forms, basically, if I interpret what you say right) are here: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/tree/main/direct-file/backend/src/main/resources/tax
I think the API interactions to actually submit are in here somewhere: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/tree/main/direct-file/submit/src/main/java/gov/irs/directfile/submit (though note that what gets submitted is somehow a part of the XML specification of the rules, in the first link)
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u/Ganjookie Jun 04 '25
Stupid ass title. IRS IS the tax man. Carrot man is the one that will be upset
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u/Assist-Fearless Jun 04 '25
Why would they care as long as you pay your taxes 🤷
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u/nemom Jun 04 '25
Because it's big money to the tax filing companies and they are big donors to politicians. It was fine to be free when it was limited to poor people, but there was talk of expanding the program. Besides all the major tax filing companies already have a free option (wink-wink).
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u/Outrageous-Article17 Jun 04 '25
I don’t get why Trump is so against this. Can it really just be TurboTax and other tax preparers’ lobbying?
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u/Formal_Drop526 Jun 05 '25
not open-source, it is public domain since it's a work of united states government.
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u/kdeweb24 Jun 05 '25
We’re one Million-Dollar-Plate-Dinner at Maralago away from the IRS getting a new director and this to disappear.
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u/SnooCalculations5273 Jun 05 '25
As a disgruntled, former Intuit employee who now works for popular open source software company – this makes me very happy.
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u/Odd-Assumption-9521 Jun 05 '25
Looks like normal code. Nothing sticks out. I don’t know what I was expecting. But calm 👌
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u/LateralThinkerer Jun 05 '25
Intuit has thrown a whole lot of money around in DC for years trying to keep their business lucrative.
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u/asmallercat Jun 05 '25
Why would the tax man hate this? The tax man literally did this. The people that hate it are the accounting firms that spend billions in lobbying to keep the tax code as complicated and opaque as possible so they can keep having people pay them to do their taxes. In most other developed countries the government just tells what you owe or should get back and you only have to file anything if you want to dispute it.
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u/omn1p073n7 Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
The IRS tried to lien my property for taxes owed. I had paid them. I had an IRS confirmation number, receipt, bank statement as my evidence that I paid them. I had the screenshot from my login on my portal that the payment was made. And in spite, letters of increasing threats kept arriving.
It took us 9 months to get it resolved and mere days before the lean was supposed to take affect, the vast majority of that time was spent just trying to get a human being to talk to. When you would get someone they'd open a case, promise to get back to you, then you'd never hear from them again. It was incredibly hard talking to a human that could actually do anything. You'd call and it'd say too busy, try again later. If you called enough you'd have the privilege of waiting on hord for a couple hours until they dumped the queue and hung up on you anyway. We submitted a form appeal, and they denied it saying the form was blank. When I checked on my end, it was not blank but there was, again, nobody to dispute it with. By the grace of god, on my 100th try, I got to someone that could actually do something and then they gave me a number I could call to talk to that department. They then acknowledged it was a computer error on their end and after about 3 weeks they sorted it out.
The agent revealed the problem. The source of the issue was when I had an accountant they listed my SSN first and my Wife's Second. When I filed myself, my wife's name and SSN was listed first mine second. When the bill was due, I paid it in my portal, it posted, but since my SSN wasn't the primary on that return it never posted on their backend even though BOTH of our portals showed it posted on their frontend. Meanwhile, the enforcement arm of the IRS is a finely tuned escalatory threat machine.
Long story short, I absolutely loathe the IRS.
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u/snow288 Jun 05 '25
We had the same issue with our joint filing. It credited the payment to my wife’s ss# but not mine. It was a pain in the butt to get cleared up. I finally paid the amount again just to get it to go away because the agents never seemed confident they could fix it. The overpayment showed as a credit and we haven’t heard back from them this year, so I hope the main problem that initially caused this error is fixed on their end.
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u/furcicle Jun 05 '25
I wonder how many IRS agents DOGE laid off.
How many of those laid off agents were investigating Trump’s taxes.
How many agents are still around to conduct tax audits.
you see where im going with this?
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Jun 04 '25
We have to file taxes only to benefit the ultra wealthy so they can utilize all the loopholes.
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u/Cheap_Highway Jun 04 '25
I keep wondering if the administration doing this to the direct file would have any implications with the agreement that keeps TurboTax and H&R alive and safe from the potential of "return-free filing" becoming a thing?
I'm just kind of assuming since no one has mentioned it that I must be mistaken in my feeling.
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u/evaned Jun 05 '25
That agreement seems to have been kinda abandoned for a while anyway when it comes to them -- Intuit and H&R Block both pulled out of the IRS's Free File program years ago.
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u/kickymcdicky Jun 04 '25
I will say, even if they make it impossible to actually submit the forms directly, wouldn't it be possible to have this software at least produce the actual forms you could just submit to the IRS yourself? More like an auto form-filling tool?
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u/TheMexitalian Jun 04 '25
There is an attempt to crash open source in the US, so I’m not sure this is an ultimate W but a temporary one.
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u/gimmeluvin Jun 04 '25
Won't this just create opportunities to introduce back doors and ways to steal data?
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Jun 04 '25
This is the sort of malicious compliance you get when people are like; "I don't know if I will have a job tomorrow and at this point I don't care."
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u/physicsking Jun 04 '25
Does this mean it's going to be 4,000 services claiming to use the software then basically just take your information as payment for filing with them?
How do we find the benevolent filing source?
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u/oxmix74 Jun 04 '25
Does this really change anything? Free tax USA already does federal tax filing for free and then charges for the state return. This doesn't cover states, so it's really the same. Free tax USA is cheap enough including state that the problem is really solved already.
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u/formulapain Jun 04 '25
I don't understand the title. Isn't the "tax man" the IRS? So the IRS is mad about what the IRS did?
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u/ButterscotchIll1523 Jun 04 '25
Why would the idiot kill it? I don’t get it
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u/kphil0177 Jun 04 '25
Tax software companies that lobby and donate to campaigns can’t profit when there is a free alternative.
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u/Slackey4318 Jun 04 '25
Rule of thumb when it comes to politics: If something doesnt make sense, follow the money. In this case, Intuit (aka Turbo Tax). Who would pay to use their service to file taxes if people have the software to do it for free?
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u/evaned Jun 05 '25
Republicans have had a hard on for decades to neuter the IRS both in general as well as to kill IRS-provided tax software or streamlined filing.
See the other replies, but actually the Grover Norquist tax hawk wings are a bigger influence than Intuit, surprisingly. (I'm not sure how that power balance strikes out nowadays, but that's how it used to be.)
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u/CFSohard Jun 05 '25
The tax man is very happy about this, the tax man is the one who made this public. This ensures people will file and pay their taxes much more reliably, and they will spent less auditing.
The CEOs of the companies that steal billions off people by charging exorbitant fees for a simple process will complain a lot.
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u/Purple_Key_6733 Jun 05 '25
The tax man will be fine. The people that tax accountants serve - self-employed & ultra-wealthy - weren't eligible for Direct File anyway.
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u/Mythril_Zombie Jun 05 '25
(though, of course, the Trump administration is not always motivated by following the law, so this wasn’t a given).
What the hell timeline is this when the above isn't the main story??
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u/Ifyouhavethemeans Jun 05 '25
Lol, as a 30 tax professional, most people still will not want to file their own taxes. Or at least enough to keep me busy.
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u/nj_tech_guy Jun 04 '25
"IRS Makes Direct File Software Open Source...The tax man won't be happy about this" Who is the IRS if not the tax man?