They're at it again.

For decades, big tax prep companies — like H&R Block and TurboTax — have lobbied the government with one main goal: making the tax-filing process as time-consuming and wallet-emptying as possible for you.

They’ve padded their profits by cornering consumers into using their products, even using deceptive practices and outright lies to hide the free options they’re supposed to offer.

So I called them out. We fought back. And last year, we won a big victory, securing funding the IRS can use to stand up its own free filing service.

But the tax prep giants sprang into action as soon as the IRS announced a pilot program. They hired fancy lobbyists. They launched a slick campaign. They’re trying to stop this reform in its tracks.

Once again, they’re taking the money they’ve made by ripping off taxpayers — and using it to lobby for the ability to rip off even more taxpayers.

So once again, I’m calling them out — and side by side, we’ll fight back and beat them.

Congresswoman Katie Porter and I just wrote a letter to the big tax prep companies. We’re asking them to account for how much they’ve spent on lobbying against free tax filing, how much they’d stand to lose if this reform takes effect, and what kinds of contact they’ve had with government officials.

We’re working to uncover what they’re doing (and spending) behind the scenes. And we’ll keep fighting to stop them from sabotaging free tax filing.

I also just released a report on how the tax prep industry enabled Meta to harvest millions of taxpayers’ sensitive personal and financial data to use for advertising purposes. I’m calling on agencies to investigate and to prosecute any violations of the law. 

I’m going to stay on this. I’ll keep working to hold off the lobbyists and keep them from blocking this reform. Because there’s no reason it should cost an arm and a leg to file your taxes. It should be fast and free. And, these companies should not be able to violate the privacy of taxpayers. 

This is part of how we make our government work for working people, not just giant corporations that can hire armies of lobbyists.

We’ve seen that when we fight, we win. We beat Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices for seniors. We beat billionaire corporations to make sure they’d pay federal income taxes on their massive profits. And we’ll beat the tax prep lobby to make it fast and free to file your taxes.

I’m able to stay in this fight because of your support. So if it makes sense for you right now, I’m asking you to pitch in $20 or any amount to our re-election campaign. Every contribution adds to help hit our important August fundraising goal. We haven’t quite reached it yet, and we’ve only got two days left.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth