A key operative from DOGE initiated plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS, after offering assurances it would be spared from cuts.
Didn’t sometime leak the source code to the government tax filing software, with the intent of making it open source? It’s not an ideal solution, but if that is a viable solution (and if it’s maintained properly) then that’s a pretty big nose-thumbing at these curious government officials.
Problem I think is the API from the IRS being closed. You could still maybe use it generate pdfs and send it, but the tool allowed you to just click send. And also, no more updates from the official source could mean they get to change a few rules and make it obsolete. We could keep it up with a bunch of volunteers, but unlike other open source projects, this has a serious legal aspect that people might not be willing to take a risk.
Didn’t sometime leak the source code to the government tax filing software, with the intent of making it open source? It’s not an ideal solution, but if that is a viable solution (and if it’s maintained properly) then that’s a pretty big nose-thumbing at these curious government officials.
The IRS itself released the code, as planned.
some good samaritan will surely create “LibreTax” on github any second now…
aaaaaaaany second now.
Problem I think is the API from the IRS being closed. You could still maybe use it generate pdfs and send it, but the tool allowed you to just click send. And also, no more updates from the official source could mean they get to change a few rules and make it obsolete. We could keep it up with a bunch of volunteers, but unlike other open source projects, this has a serious legal aspect that people might not be willing to take a risk.