this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 449 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (37 children)

really good article with a couple surprises in there.

"some people speculated that, because of the political pressure against it, its release must have been an act of resistance by someone within the IRS. But the open sourcing of the program was always part of the plan, and was required by a law called the SHARE IT Act. It happened “fully above board, which is honestly more of a feat!,” Given told 404 Media. “This has been in the works since last year.”

Vinton told 404 Media in a phone call that the open sourcing of Direct File “is just good government.”

“All code paid for by taxpayer dollars should be open source, available for comment, for feedback, for people to build on and for people in other agencies to replicate. It saves everyone money and it is our [taxpayers’] IP,” she said. “This is just good government and should absolutely be the standard that government technologists are held to.”"

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 108 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (15 children)

Dunno, sounds like some fucking commie shit to be. And not the kind i can someyimes get on board with when it comes time to do secret police shebanigans, but the bad scary kind where they dont even have a use for police.

Wouldn't it be better to just give the code for free to a good corporate citizen who can be entrusted with its stewardship?

Edit: yes of course we rent it back!

[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 77 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

only if the corporate citizen promises really hard we can trust them. like a super promise.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Also we have to pay them whenever we want to use the code. Yes.

[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

you bought it, why shouldn't you also rent it?

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Exactly! Twice the value for my tax dollar!

Not that I've ever paid taxes, but, you know, if my accounting department all suddenly died in mid march some year, and i wasnt operated out of a PO box in a tax shelter, i bet i mightve had to.

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[–] czl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Bro why are people downvoting this when it is so clearly a joke

[–] fiddledeedee@sopuli.xyz 41 points 1 day ago

because its the internet in 2025 and we simply cannot tell anymore

I can think of two reasons and both of them are hilarious.

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[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 139 points 2 days ago (8 children)
[–] dhork@lemmy.world 68 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Hurry up and clone that ASAP, this is gonna get taken down once DOGE realizes what it is

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 49 points 1 day ago (6 children)

More likely they'll just turn off or unpublish the API that it depends on.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is that even available right now? Usually for this type of thing you need API keys, which are not included, nor available at all.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Direct File interprets the United States' Internal Revenue Code (26 USC) as plain language questions, the answers to which should be known to taxpayers without need of external instructions or publications. Taxpayers' answers are then translated into standard tax forms and transmitted to the IRS's Modernized e-File (MeF) API, which is available for authorized public use

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[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 104 points 1 day ago (2 children)

TurboTax owned buy intuit, part of H&R block who has partnered with credit karma. Everything is a monopoly now

[–] smashing3606@feddit.online 39 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure intuit and h&r block are competitors, not the same compamy.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 66 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You are correct.

Here's an annoying thing i just learned about H&R Block:

As of 2022, H&R Block's tax preparation service shares user data with Facebook, which can be used for targeted advertising. This can include sensitive financial information from health savings accounts and college expenses, and this tax data is shared without consent even for users who opt out of the service.

[–] solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Do you have a source we can reference for that particular bit of shitbaggery?

Edit: congressional report on the shit bags in question:

https://www.classaction.org/media/hartz-v-taxact-inc-congressional-report.pdf

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[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah I saw Monopoly Fortnite I wonder what is next?

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

I know, what are they making next? Lord of the Rings edition? Star Wars? Oh the humanities.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 52 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Unless it's maintained it won't be of much use. It needs to be kept up to date with tax laws, and it relies entirely on the IRS accepting the generated returns. It seems it may function for now, though.

Direct File interprets the United States' Internal Revenue Code (26 USC) as plain language questions, the answers to which should be known to taxpayers without need of external instructions or publications. Taxpayers' answers are then translated into standard tax forms and transmitted to the IRS's Modernized e-File (MeF) API, which is available for authorized public use

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Direct File is maintained by the IRS themselves though.

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[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website 51 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's already got 4 PRs

lol

[–] jayandp@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago (3 children)
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[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day ago

What happened to the title of this?? Jeez

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago

Suck a bag of dicks, TurboTax

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I got told I couldn't get a tax return because they flagged me for potential fraud, so I have to go to ID.me to verify.. but then my account got banned while trying to verify my information.

Fml

Guess that means they don't want your money! Woo! (this is not legal advice, pay your taxes)

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[–] fiddledeedee@sopuli.xyz 20 points 1 day ago

HA get fucked turbotax

[–] demizerone@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

The more money you pay someone to find the loop holes in the tax code the less likely you are to support out government and its war machine.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Oh that's awesome. I hope it can still be accepted by the IRS for the future (if we still have one in ~3 years) but it would be neat to just be able to have an open standard for online filing.

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[–] LorIps@lemmy.world 18 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

It's licensed under CC0 to anyone wondering. BSD 0-Clause would probably be better but still fantastic.

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[–] Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 13 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

Was the US so behind that they didn't have a way to file taxes online for free?

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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 12 points 1 day ago

THIS is the way.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 10 points 13 hours ago
[–] smikwily@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago

Archive of the full article: https://archive.ph/6qJ6v

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