June 7, 2023
What if you could just file your taxes for free and you didn’t have to pay for Turbo Tax or one of those other third-party software systems?
Well, starting next year – you may be able to.
That’s because the IRS is rolling out a pilot program called “direct file”. Basically it’s the IRS’s own version of tax software that would allow you to e-file your taxes free, and would be totally voluntary. Obviously, you won’t be forced to use it.
The IRS just issued this report to Congress saying they are taking some of that $80 billion lawmakers gave them in the inflation reduction act to develop this software because taxpayers are telling them they want something that’s free and directly developed by the IRS to make things easier.
The IRS says – depending on how many Americans want to use the Direct File software it could cost the government anywhere from $64 million to $249 million a year. More than half of that cost would be for customer support.
At this point – we don’t know how many people the IRS will include in the pilot program and we don’t know when or how you can sign up for it. The IRS says we’ll know more in the coming months.
Read more about Direct File here.
