The IRS is not known for its booming popularity. Only 38 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tax collection agency, according to the Pew Research Center.
Yet the IRS is now trying to exert even more power over the taxpayer.
The agency is in the process of preparing a feedback survey about a program it tested last year called Direct File. The survey was snuck into Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill by congressional Democrats, which should tell you everything you need to know about it—and Direct File.
The survey is clearly unscientific: there’s no limit to how many times users can take it, and the IRS makes zero effort to capture a genuine, comprehensive snapshot of public opinion. This is by design: the real purpose of the survey is to tell the IRS what it wants to hear.
And what the IRS wants to hear are good things about Direct File. Because Direct File is a plan to increase the IRS’s power.
Back in 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, and among its many provisions was the Direct File pilot program. This allowed Americans to have their tax bills prepared directly by the IRS rather than by accountants or tax preparation software like TurboTax.
It’s one thing to have the IRS collecting taxes, but to put it in charge of filing taxes raises a clear conflict of interest. The IRS is an agency of the federal government and thus has an interest in collecting as much in tax revenue as possible. Taxes, after all, fund the paychecks of IRS employees.
So while private tax preparers have an incentive to save their customers as much as possible so they’ll be hired again the following year, the IRS is different. Its motivation is to overlook exemptions and credits that might leave more money in taxpayers’ pockets.
This conflict could already be seen with the pilot program. According to a report by an Inspector General, the IRS’s Direct File software failed to list certain education tax credits that filers could claim. Hundreds of returns that had been submitted through Direct File would have been eligible for these credits, leaving each of those taxpayers out up to $2,500 in rightful refunds. Who knows how many other savings the IRS conveniently overlooked?
It’s worth pointing out that no one asked for Direct File. Fewer than 1 percent of eligible taxpayers participated in Direct File’s pilot, while only about a third of participants who created a profile finished submitting a tax return. Users later indicated they didn’t like Direct File’s limited scope or confusing complexity.
Plenty of free tax preparation services already exist to help low-income Americans prepare their taxes, including valuable public-private partnerships that have proven track records — so why do we need Direct File?
Then there were the cost overruns. According to the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), Congress initially allotted the IRS $15 million for the Direct File pilot, but the project—surprise, surprise—went over budget. So the IRS, according to the NTU, “raided nearly every other major budget category” to make sure Direct File got done.
One Inspector General report found that the IRS almost certainly lowballed the initial cost of Direct File, noting that “when we asked the IRS for documentation supporting how it arrived at these various cost estimates, it could not provide us with any.”
What this adds up to is a picture of desperation. The IRS is frantic to finish Direct File even though it’s a sub-par product no one wants, because they want to extend their control over the entire tax process.
Also standing to benefit is the rest of the administrative state, which is forever in search of more taxpayer money rather than reducing costs or rooting out inefficiencies. By cutting down on so-called “tax evaders,” Washington hopes they’ll have more wealth to spread among themselves.
The federal government is already the most wasteful entity on earth. The GAO estimates that the feds made $236 billion in “improper payments” in 2023 alone while the national debt stands at an astonishing $38 trillion.
There’s simply no way these people deserve to be given even more control over our money. It’s time for Donald Trump to pull the plug on Direct File. And while he’s at it, he should make sure the IRS finally sees some needed reform.
Steve Cortes is president of the League of American Workers and senior political adviser to Catholic Vote. He is a former senior adviser to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance and a former Fox News commentator.