This is the best summary I could come up with:

The IRS will test a free tax filing service in 2024 for a subset of lucky taxpayers in as many as 13 states, the agency announced today.

The program is more or less a direct result of funding provided by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, through which $15 million was earmarked for the purpose of exploring and implementing a simple, free, government-provided tax filing service.

Over the last year and a half, the IRS has been building out the pilot program, which it characterizes as being “one more potential option” on the continuum from self-managed Free File, to commercial products like Turbotax, to a tax prep professional.

The IRS describes Direct File as “a mobile-friendly, interview-based service” available in English and Spanish, intended for people with simpler tax situations like W-2s and common income credits and deductions.

This will in turn “allow the IRS to evaluate the costs, benefits and operational challenges associated with providing a voluntary Direct File option to taxpayers.” In software terms, we’d probably call this an alpha.

Intuit and others which have surreptitiously fought against simple, free, and transparent tax filing for many years (as ProPublica documented not long ago) are no doubt seething and scheduling emergency meetings.

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