IRS makes free tax return program permanent and is asking all states to join in 2025
IRS makes free tax return program permanent and is asking all states to join in 2025
The IRS will make permanent the free electronic tax return filing system that it experimented with this year.
The IRS said Thursday it will make permanent the free electronic tax return filing system that it experimented with this year and is asking all 50 states and the District of Columbia to help taxpayers file their returns through the program in 2025.
The IRS tried the Direct File project for the 2024 tax season on a limited basis in 12 states for people with very simple W-2s, the employee’s wage and tax statement.
The agency also is inviting all states with a state income tax to sign up and help people file their state returns for free. During the 2024 pilot, tax agencies in Arizona, Massachusetts, California and New York helped people directly file their state taxes.
Can't wait for the governor of my state to vilify this as socialism and block it for her constituents because it might benefit even a single poor person.
extremely rare IRS W
This is going to change so much for so many people, avoid lots of headaches too.
Over here, online and automated tax returns have been a thing for over a decade.
You can opt to get it on paper or online, but they supply you with a pre-filled return most people can usually directly file without a single alteration. And you don't even have to actually file the pre-filled return if it's complete, just ignore it and it is automatically regarded as filed.
And if you have anything to add, on the website it's as simple as hitting some checkboxes for the appropriate tax codes (which all have extensive explanations and automated inclusion/exclusion rules so that if you check a specific box that also requires you to add other information, it won't file without adding the other information) and adding the numbers (if there's any specific numbers attached) and hit recalculate.
Even my tech illiterate and phobic dad can work with it.
Long overdue but great news. The IRS is really visibly having positive results from their increased funding.
I hope it will be free to all filers. As all filers are tax payers, not just people who make under $50k a year, or whatever previous limits they had on fillable forms.
I think the limit was more about which forms were available in the app, and above a certain income it was likely unavailable forms would be more commonly needed.
Here’s hoping that they plan on expanding the library of forms available!
Very simple returns. Fillers couldn’t even participate if they had child care deductions. I hope they scale out capabilities too along with this expansion.
And not to sound too pessimistic, but I doubt we’ll get participation in all 50 states by 2025, since those tax rules need to be added to the system as well. It sounds quite complicated for a one year project. So just some expectation management in this one. Fingers crossed.
Well the IRS doesn’t manage state filing IIRC, so if that’s the case you would need your state to provide that.
And, each of the states could work together in some sort of federation to provide a unified interface for state-level filing.