this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 146 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Repo: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

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

[–] ricecake 52 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So before the API it still generates everything you need to mail in the forms?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Probably. It would need to be updated with new laws and rules though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Recreating the API seems doable? If we can recreate dead MMO servers…

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Are you comparing online game servers to the American tax system? Because I really want a ban.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

What really pisses me off is that their anti-cheat forces me to use dogeOS

[–] ricecake 6 points 1 week ago

Well, you probably could. Issue is that you can't self host the IRS. If they aren't running the service that accepts the data there isn't much you can do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

That was my thought too and I did so but it's been up for over a week now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I wonder if this could be altered to work for other countries

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We've already got free software for filing taxes, kthxbye!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Oh that's good to know what's it's called

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It would be nice but I think it is not really possible. Too many difference in the laws I suppose.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, tax software is hyper-tailored to the tax law, which is why it needs to get an update every year.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

I can see the EU funding it. This could be a measure to allow Blue States circumvent the federal system - a CaliTAX, AlohaTAX, ect. This would be vital during a civil war scenario, so that the Blue States can having working taxation systems without having to redo everything.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 1 week ago

Comment from the first PR:

because this is the first pull request and something many people will see, I would like to say that I learned from a former project manager at the IRS that development on Direct File has stopped since January. the source code is only public because of federal law. it's not likely that this is going to be merged but it's possible that the components of Direct File might be used elsewhere

Don't get your hopes up too much.