YES iff the IRS releases tax preparation software that allows you to prepare your taxes and submit them, in a way that is significantly easier than using the forms (should be a reasonable competitor to tax preparation software). The software should be available for use and free for at least 10% of American taxpayers. Those 10% should theoretically be able to use it as their primary way of filing federal tax. State taxes are out of scope. Has to be made by the IRS or their contractors
1,000
1.00Does a pilot program or test still satisfy the 10% criteria?
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/17/politics/irs-free-tax-filing-pilot-direct-file/index.html
How user friendly and reliable does it have to be to be considered a reasonable competitor?
@SpeaksForTrees As long as 10% of Americans are eligible to use it, and actually can use it for their entire tax prep if they wanted to. From what I understand, this pilot has a more limited scope.
@SpeaksForTrees It can be buggy or have awful UX, people would probably still use it anyways. But it does need to be usable to a non-expert, in a way that just filling out raw tax forms usually aren't