Elizabeth Warren on her proposal to bring back IRS Direct File: 'For just one day of bombing Iran, we could pay for 20 years'.

The article focuses on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s ongoing opposition to the privatization of the U.S. tax filing system, particularly targeting major tax preparation companies Intuit and H&R Block. Warren criticizes these companies for extensive lobbying—over $103 million across two decades—to block IRS modernization efforts, including the IRS’s Direct File program, a free, in-house tax filing service that was highly rated but discontinued due to industry pressure. The IRS’s Free File Alliance, a public-private partnership offering free filing to taxpayers earning $89,000 or less, remains active, but Warren argues that private tax firms have undermined broader free filing initiatives to protect their profits. Her proposed Direct File Act aims to reinstate the IRS’s free filing service, which she contends would benefit taxpayers and reduce reliance on costly private tax preparers. [Extracted from the article]