“We believe that the IRS can offer free and easy tax filing to every American taxpayer who wants it — and that, with Direct File, it will.”
WASHINGTON – Recently, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet joined over 130 of their congressional colleagues in sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Daniel Werfel applauding the successful pilot of the Direct File program and urging them to expand its functionality and scope. The IRS Direct File program allowed taxpayers to file their returns for free, directly with the IRS.
“The Direct File pilot has been a clear and resounding success,” wrote the lawmakers. “We now call on you to make Direct File a permanent program and to expand its functionality and scope, eventually making it available to most taxpayers, further increasing its impact.”
In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which invested approximately $80 billion to modernize the IRS, improve customer service, cut the tax return backlog, and improve the agency’s tax evasion enforcement.
The Biden administration announced in May of last year that they would be launching a Direct File pilot in 2024. This past tax season, over 140,000 taxpayers used the tool across 12 pilot states, saving taxpayers more than $90 million in refunds and an estimated $5.6 million in tax preparation fees on their federal returns alone. A survey of 11,000 users found that 90 percent ranked their experience as “Excellent” or “Above Average,” and 90 percent of survey respondents who used customer service similarly found the experience “Excellent” or “Above Average.”
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