the IRS recently open sourced most of Direct File, a tax tool it has been working on for a few years now. unfortunately, due to recent events, the IRS isn't working on it anymore. I decided to pick up where they left off and I'm trying to get it ready for next tax season
the work behind Direct File is really interesting and I made a lot of it available online to read as well - https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/
nxobject2 days ago
Thanks so much for keeping this going, and for the late 18F for open-sourcing these implementations... I hope there's a way we can institutionalize your efforts.
As a side note, when the documentation page is viewed in a dark mode browser, I see black text on black background (https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/).
elijahwright_op2 days ago
I'll fix the docs today, thanks
McAlpine58922 days ago
Thank you for your work
onetom2 days ago
i'm not from the US, but i did work on forms related to government workflows.
it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store facts about themselves and let some software figure out which of those facts are needed for filling out any form, which needs the usual personal facts.
then one can review the required facts and decide which ones are they willing to share.
in fact governments could even standardize the kind of info they are dealing with usually and when a citizen wants the government to do something, instead of filling out forms, they could provide their own, self-hosted fact db, run the govt's query and provide the results (after review)
bigums2 days ago
Sounds similar to what Tim Berners-Lee was working on with Solid (https://solidproject.org/about).
aspenmayer2 days ago
I think the post office could have been this, but the political will wasn't there. Separation of banking from taxation and the postal system from both of those for separation of concerns for compartmentalization was probably at the forefront of the minds of the founders, since Washington himself had run a spy network and been personally hunted by soldiers and mercenaries on their own turf during the revolution, so I can't say these aren't legitimate concerns, but they haven't exactly aged well. At the time of the revolution and directly after the union, there was no federal income tax anyway.
2Gkashmiri2 days ago
> I think the post office could have been this
Explain. Id like to.know
aspenmayer2 days ago
I was responding to this aspect:
> it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store facts about themselves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...
Hypothetically, you could have sent 0.01 to a friend and use the memo field as a poor man's postcard with free postage, provided in-system transactions were free, which they arguably ought to be, but likely never were or would be in actuality.
2Gkashmiri2 days ago
Taxes work on "self assessment" basis meaning you, the taxpayer have the burden to declare all facts relevant to assessment of your tax and you pay the tax.
Then, sometimes your case is picked for audit and then they check if what you declared is correct as per applicable laws or not.
See, here is a small mom and pop shop... who owns that? Is the premises on rent? How much ? Is the rent deed valid and proper? Maybe you are paying less rent than declaring? Are you actually employing people you say you are? Are you paying them exactly you say you are paying?
How would you ensure that fact db is not having funny data ?
Say i am saying i am paying 100 bucks a week for fuel but fact is, my shop is next door to my home and i am just pocketing this cash daily. If i keep putting this 100 bucks weekly expense in this factdb, how will govt know.that i am not lying?
wredcoll2 days ago
That's how they work now in america. They don't have to.
As for fraud, the same way they check for lies now, cross reference reports and then audit.
dawnerd2 days ago
It’s my understanding that they have expected ranges certain things should be within that’s considered normal and anything outside of that puts a higher risk of an audit or simple manual review/adjustment.
cxr2 days ago
You're moving the goalposts; the purpose would be reducing toil (and possibly other costs) for the people who are currently tasked with filling out these types of forms.
There's nothing in the comment you're responding to that suggests that it's instead meant to be a solution to the problem of the government (or any other org) being unable to trust the inputs to its systems or ameliorate the costs of bad actors at all.
A person entering lies in their personal fact database tomorrow can submit the same lies on their personal income tax return today.
citizenpaul2 days ago
That is really awesome, which I could give more upvotes. I hope you can keep it running and get some support. (sry i've made it a life mission to avoid javascript when possible)
It really is embarrassing how ineffective and useless the US gov has become.
onetom2 days ago
the https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/direct-file.html link in the readme results in 404
elijahwright_op2 days ago
sorry I changed the name, here's the correct URL - https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/reference.html
EPWN3D2 days ago
Would absolutely love a command line. Maybe if I ever get free time and feel like dusting off my Java.
sciencesamaa day ago
May be feed this to ai to teach us how to reduce taxes !!
1oooqooq2 days ago
never understood exactly what is the code they released. is it just the from filler that only works for people with a single w2 and no stocks etc?
toomuchtodo2 days ago
IRS Direct File on GitHub - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44182356 - June 2025
https://chrisgiven.com/2025/06/saying-goodbye/
https://chrisgiven.com/2025/05/direct-file-on-github/
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
(In the latest version of the bill being negotiated in Congress, the language to sunset Direct File has been removed, but this of course could change due to the fluidity of the situation; regardless, we are all better off having learned from this and having access to the source code)
elijahwright_op2 days ago
the code they released was everything that is necessary to run Direct File in development, but they removed code relating to MeF (the IRS's online submission API) and SADI (the IRS's auth system which is integrated with ID.me). most of the code is the backend, Fact Graph (which is a very complex rules engine), the client app (both the form and the screener when you go to directfile.irs.gov), and the state tax API
1oooqooqa day ago
so it is the mostly useless system that only works for a single w2 :(
99.999% of people here would never be able to use it anyway.
elijahwright_op13 hours ago
it works with multiple W-2s I'm pretty sure. the goal is to make it work for everyone which is pretty difficult but I'm motivated to at least work on getting it to work with IRAs because I have one and I want to use this for next year
hermannj3142 days ago
For what it is worth, the Big Beautiful Bill contains this gem...
As soon as practicable, and not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program has been terminated.
(This is the text of the bill on the website as of the time I posted this, it can change or be wrong now.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/te...)
Evidlo21 hours ago
That section was just removed.
citizenpaul2 days ago
Not that I needed any more proof of how disgustingly anti-human the government has become. So depressing.
hackingonempty6 hours ago
Intuit is owned by humans.
leptons2 days ago
[flagged]
shiroiumaa day ago
It's a distinction without a difference. The Republican party is the government now. It's what Americans voted for.
leptons8 hours ago
No, it is a very important distinction. Only one side is fascist authoritarian, the other side has no power to stop them. It's not "the US government", it's 100% Republicans. Yes, "it's what Americans" voted for", but even that is debatable. Quite a lot of America didn't even vote, were prevented from voting, and there's evidence of irregularities in the results. But yes, Republicans won, and they are doing their best to dismantle democracy. The Left is nothing like them at all, so the distinction is very important. Both sides are not the same.
Sohcahtoa822 days ago
It's gotten outright infuriating that people keep blaming government for bad initiatives that are solely the fault of Republicans.
Getting real tired of people blaming "both sides" for everything bad the government does as if it's some sort of morally or intellectually superior viewpoint. It's a thought-ending cliche.
Sure, both sides are drone-striking warmongers. Both sides are basically owned by corporations.
But only one side is welcoming literal flag-waving Nazis into their midst and working to deport legal citizens and immigrants. Only one side is fighting to take food away from children in schools. Only one side is trying to take healthcare away from senior citizens. Only one side is trying to create a Christian white ethno-state.
People try to accuse the left of trying to stifle freedom-of-speech, yet Trump is the one spreading rhetoric about wanting to jail journalists for daring to speak up against him.
andrekandre20 hours ago
> blaming government for bad initiatives that are solely the fault of Republicans
leptons17 hours ago
Except they voted for the guy that lied and lied and lied. Whatever happened to the immigrants eating cats and dogs in Ohio? Nothing, that's what. It was bald-faced lie. And people believed it and still voted for the insurrectionist. The problem with this country is low-IQ, hateful, spiteful voters.
andrekandre10 hours ago
> Whatever happened to the immigrants eating cats and dogs in Ohio? Nothing, that's what. It was bald-faced lie. And people believed it
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kat5297702 days ago
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