The 2026 tax season is fast approaching, and filing may look a little different next year for some taxpayers.

IRS Direct File, the electronic system for filing tax returns for free, will not be offered next year, the Trump administration confirmed last week.

What is IRS Direct File?

The backstory:

Direct File was rolled out as a pilot program in 2024 after the IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a "direct file" system as part of the money it received from the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by Biden in 2022. The Biden administration spent tens of millions of dollars developing the program and said in May 2024 that the program would be made permanent after it was praised for making tax filing easy and economical.

The other side:

It was criticized by some Republican

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