New Orleans There was a simple article that ran in the local papers on the AP wire, entitled “IRS kills Direct File program.” The piece was alerting the few readers that might have noticed the article buried in the paper that the Direct File program would “not be available in Filing Season 2026. No launch date has been set for the future.” Yet, in the next breath notes that the program “was credited by users with making tax filing easy, fast, and economical.”
Why would the IRS kill such a program that makes it easier for people to file their taxes? The answer is not hard to suss out. Lobbyists for private tax preparers were obviously out in force and behind all of this. Reportedly, Republicans had been griping about the Direct File program for years. They were claiming that there were already “free” programs out there, even if they were harder to use. Unspoken was the fact that many of these private firms charged for use of the software and others used their programs to recruit customers and upsell. They make billions on their systems. “The average American typically spends about $140 preparing returns each year.”
ACORN fought the big commercial tax preparers – H&R Block, Jackson-Hewitt, and Liberty – for years. In doing so, we came to understand a lot about how they work, because their business model for all the sound and fury is doing taxes for low-and-middle income families. When we moved against their practices in offering various kinds of refund anticipation loans, we quickly discovered they were willing to negotiate not simply because we had done hundreds of actions against them, but because we were representing the heartland of their base. After settling agreements with all three companies to phase out in various ways their predatory practices, H&R Block was interested in partnering with ACORN because they saw our tax centers around the country as competition. At various times they raised the prospect to our people, and even to me, of somehow buying the operation.
Compared to the huge attacks of this administration against lower income families, this is small potatoes, but it should not be overlooked. This is a backdoor maneuver in the words of a spokesperson from the Economic Security Project, said “Trump’s billionaire friends get favors while honest, hardworking Americans will pay more to file their taxes.”
The small cuts are as bad as the large wounds.