Trump's IRS kills program that let Americans file taxes for free

President Donald Trump's allies in the IRS killed a popular tax filing program this week, which had been piloted under former President Joe Biden's administration, according to a new report.

Washington Post White House and economics reporter Jacob Bogage posted on Bluesky on Tuesday that the IRS had killed the IRS Direct File program, which let users file their taxes for free. The program was launched in 2023 after uproar over the cost of private tax filing services.

The IRS began notifying state agencies on Monday that the service will not be available for the 2026 tax season.

Biden's Inflation Reduction Act provided the initial funding to start the pilot program, the Washington Post reported at the time. Since then, reports indicate that about 295,000 people used the pilot.

“There’s something very important about the fact that even beyond making it easy and beyond making it free, this is something you could do directly with your government,” said Gabriel Zucker, associate policy director for tax benefits at the advocacy group Code for America, told the outlet.