A strong, ongoing Direct File platform would have provided everyday folks with another option for filing their income taxes that would be easier and could save them time and money. Direct File is a free public online tool to file and prepare income taxes.
Starting in the 2024 tax-filing season, the IRS tested Direct File as a pilot program for filing federal income taxes, which was available to qualifying residents of 12 states, primarily for folks with simple returns. In addition, four states also tested the ability to Direct File state income tax returns. In 2025, Direct File was expanded to 25 states and was available to people with more kinds of income sources.
Despite Direct File’s success, the Trump administration has reportedly decided to end it.
Paying taxes is how we come together to fund public services that Americans value and count on, but with our current system, the majority of folks pay to meet their tax-filing responsibilities. A free public income tax-filing option would have been a better choice for many by:
- Saving taxpayers time and money: The IRS estimates that people spend an average of 13 hours and $270 to file their federal return, including organizing their tax documents and planning their submissions. The Treasury Department estimates that Direct File users saved $5.6 million on tax preparation during the 2024 pilot program. Direct File users also reported that in 2024, filing their taxes took less than an hour.
- Improving access to tax credits: Direct File could increase the number of eligible people who receive important federal and state tax credits that boost their incomes, such as the Child Tax Credit. Many workers and families currently may have trouble claiming these credits, which could be due to the high costs of private tax-filing options and the time it takes to file.
- Creating a seamless and quick federal-state integrated system: Some states offered Direct File users the ability to file their federal and state income tax return together in the same program. This allowed the information from the federal income tax form to automatically transfer to the state income tax form. A survey of 2024 Direct File users with a state integrated return by Code for America found that 95 percent of respondents experienced a seamless and quick transfer of their income data from federal to state returns.
- Avoiding the challenges with for-profit tax preparation: Private tax preparation companies create many barriers that purposefully trick filers into spending more money and specifically target people of color and low-income filers. Direct File removes the for-profit middleman, and means more folks can access free tax-filing.
- Improving trust in tax-filing accuracy: Filing taxes is complicated. A survey of 2024 Direct File users by the IRS found that participants appreciated how filing directly with the IRS prevented misunderstandings and made them trust their taxes were done correctly. In 2025, some surveyed Direct File users expressed increased trust because their information was auto-filled into their tax form and complex terms were explained.
Direct File addresses problems found with other filing options
Direct File provides many of the benefits tax filers deserve in a tax-filing service while avoiding problems other filing options have.
Minnesotans have limited ability to access free tax-filing options. According to the Minnesota Department of Revenue, only 4 percent of Minnesota tax-filers used free options such as IRS Free File, VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance), and Tax Counseling for the Elderly in 2022. Because of limited funding and capacity, free services are not able to serve all Minnesotans who are eligible. Furthermore, income, age, and other restrictions limit who can use them.
Another problem is that IRS Free File, which is offered through some commercial companies, is not widely attainable and does not always end up being free. These filing products are not required to be accessible or available to all tax filers who meet IRS requirements to qualify. Many of the largest, like H&R Block and Turbotax, also choose to use deceptive tactics to get filers to pay when they didn’t have to. For example, some filers trying to file for free are redirected to paid services or asked to pay amended return fees.
Data privacy is also a concern when using commercial tax preparation software. Paid tax preparation software companies have come under fire for illegally sharing and misusing taxpayer data. Sensitive data is routinely sold and shared with third parties for marketing purposes unless users go out of their way to opt out.
Direct File has been a success
At the conclusion of the pilot program in 2024, nearly 141,000 taxpayers filed their taxes using Direct File, which was much higher usage than was expected. The Direct File program garnered significant interest among millions of people visiting the site to learn more. In 2025, just over 300,000 accepted returns were filed by Direct File users.
Overall, users reported great experiences. Ninety percent of survey respondents rated Direct File as “Excellent” or “Above Average” in 2024 and 94 percent did so in 2025. A survey of Direct File users by the Economic Security Project found that 74 percent of respondents preferred Direct File compared to the filing option they used in the previous year, and an overwhelming majority said they would recommend it to others.
People who had the opportunity to file their state income taxes through Direct File also reported positive experiences. Code for America, which designed the FileYourStateTaxes program to integrate state filing, found that 96 percent of survey respondents in 2024 and 98 percent of survey respondents in 2025 were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their experience with FileYourStateTaxes. A similar percentage found the integration with the federal filing system was “seamless and quick” in both years. In fact, in 2024, 88 percent of filers completed and submitted their state return within 15 minutes. In 2025, 86 percent of users finished filing their state return in less than 15 minutes, while the most common experience among survey respondents was that they finished in less than five minutes. In both years, the vast majority of people who had the option to use Direct File to file their state return chose to do so.
By ending Direct File, tax preparation companies win out at the expense of everyday taxpayers
Hundreds of thousands of people benefitted from the use of Direct File in 2025. This higher participation and the positive experiences taxpayers report are despite disruption and misleading communications during the filing season. Direct File was a target of the Trump administration. Challenges to taxpayers learning about and using Direct File included Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk claiming that the service had been “deleted;” the IRS shuttering education and outreach on Direct File and making it more difficult for the public to find Direct File on the IRS website; and fears about risks to taxpayers’ sensitive information by reports that IRS would share tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Media coverage of Direct File was characterized by lack of clarity on whether it still existed, further deterring participation.
The sabotage of Direct File during the 2025 season and its reported cancellation for the future is a win for tax preparation companies, which have a long history of lobbying policymakers to prevent people from having a free, public tax-filing option.
Direct File could still offer a better tax-filing solution in the future
Even though Direct File was an overwhelmingly successful and popular service during the 2024 and 2025 tax seasons, the Trump administration has decided to end it. This derails plans from the IRS’s Direct File team for further expansions and improvements to the user experience. These plans included enhancing pre-population of user information from the IRS to the tax form, making it even easier and quicker to file, and covering more kinds of income and tax benefits. Many more states were also poised to be a part of Direct File in the coming years.
Despite the current grim outlook, there is hope from advocates and users alike for a tax system that works for all Americans in the future. The door has been left open for a bigger and better Direct File that could ensure more tax filers can quickly and easily file their taxes for free.
In this blog, survey results on user experiences with Direct File are taken primarily from the following reports:
- Internal Revenue Service, IRS Direct File Filing Season 2025 Report, May 13, 2025
- Internal Revenue Service, IRS Direct File Pilot Program Filing Season 2024 After Action Report, May 3, 2024.
- Code for America, Direct File and FileYourStateTaxes in the 2024 Filing Season, April 2025
- Code for America, Direct File, Integrated State Filing, and FileYourStateTaxes, April 2024