IRS Makes Direct File Software Open Source After Trump Tried to Kill It

Before you mistake [open-sourcing DIrectFile on GitHub] as an act of resistance by those within the agency who are trying to keep the project alive, Direct File getting open-sourced was always part of the plan. The code was published in compliance with the SHARE IT Act, which requires agencies to share custom source code (though, of course, the Trump administration is not always motivated by following the law, so this wasn’t a given).

Musk’s DOGE blew up 18F, the government agency that was key to building Direct File, and set out to explicitly shut down the Direct File tool despite it being wildly popular among taxpayers. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill would also cut the budget entirely for Direct File, leaving it dead in the water, which would surely thrill Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, that spent millions of dollars lobbying to kill a government-provided free tax filing option.