29 House Republicans want Trump to scrap the IRS's free direct tax filing tool on day one of his presidency

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Yahoo! News/Business Insider

Wed, December 11, 2024 at 12:15 PM EST


More than two dozen House Republicans are asking President-elect Donald Trump to terminate the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) free direct tax filing system as soon as day one of his presidency.

Republican Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina sent a letter to the president-elect on Tuesday urging him to end the program via executive order, saying that the program poses a "threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."

The letter was signed by 27 other Republicans and is also addressed to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-leads of DOGE.

The program came about as the result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $15 million in funding to study the creation of a website allowing Americans to directly file their taxes to the IRS for free. That led to the rollout of a pilot program that was available in 12 states last year, and is set to expand to 24 states in 2025. A spokesperson for the IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/29-house-republicans-want-trump-171540888.html

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Link to PRESS RELEASE (with letter excerpts) - Smith, Edwards, Colleagues Call for Day-One Elimination of IRS Direct File

[no_hypocrisy]

1. "Overreach"?

The Government is getting more revenue -- and isn't THAT a good thing?

[Ocelot II]

2. It's to be sure there's no competition from a free government program

that might cut into the income of for-profit tax preparers like H&R Block.

[Old Crank]

5. This should be revenue neutral for the government.

It should dave money for taxpayers.
If I owe $1000 in taxes it doesn't matter who does the preparation. The costs of implementing the program could be made up by a reduction in auditing lower income tax returns.

As for overreach, people volunteer to have their taxes done by the government, themselvrs, or a tax prep company.

[CousinIT]

7. NOT to a MAGAt. They think the whole thing should be defunded...

… so they don’t have to pay taxes.

[Intractable]

3. Let's keep filing taxes complicated, expensive, and difficult for the average person.

So many people suffer with stress regarding the filing of taxes.

[Ocelot II]

4. If filing taxes weren't complicated, expensive, and difficult,

people wouldn't have to pay for-profit tax preparers, who are most likely behind this.

[CousinIT]

6. MAGAts despise anything that serves the American people or the common good

IRS free filing, Social Security and Medicare, ACA, public schools, public libraries, etc. And they damn sure hate Democracy for the same reason.

[Dem2theMax]

8. WTF?

I just can't. My brain can't fathom everything coming our way.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I'm guessing they all own stock in

H&R Block, or other such.

[travelingthrulife]

10. Why can't we have anything nice in this country. Republicans.