John,

If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, now’s the time. And, thanks to critical investments in the IRS that we fought for and won, the IRS has officially launched a pilot program of its new, free Direct File online tax filing tool.

Direct File is a new way to file your federal taxes for free, online, without the need for expensive paid services like TurboTax and H&R Block.

During this year’s pilot program, Direct File is available to folks in Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Wyoming. If it’s successful this year, it could become available to millions more people next tax filing season.

Click here to see if you qualify for the IRS’s brand new Direct File pilot program and file your taxes for free, online today.

Direct File is only possible because of your activism. Together, in 2022, we helped Congress pass the largest ever investment in the IRS. That investment is modernizing the agency and allowing it to better serve everyday taxpayers, while cracking down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats.

For too long, private tax preparation companies deliberately misled taxpayers to extract more fees or intentionally made it more difficult to find the free version of their offerings. For example, TurboTax was hiding their Free File landing page from online search engines and creating their own “free” edition of their software that misled consumers, often compelling them to pay as much as $200.¹

The Federal Trade Commission issued a ruling earlier this year calling TurboTax’s actions “egregious” and required that TurboTax only promote their free tax filing platform if they tell customers who qualifies and provide taxpayers with easy access to that platform.²

For the last 20 years, through both overt and covert lobbying efforts, TurboTax and H&R Block intentionally blocked the IRS from creating a free online tax filing program.³ Just last year, in a last-ditch effort to stop the IRS from implementing Direct File, TurboTax spent the most ever in a single year on federal lobbying.⁴

But because of our work together, TurboTax lost and American taxpayers won.

Click here to check out the IRS’s new, free online tax filing system, and see if you’re eligible for the Direct File pilot program this year.

American taxpayers have been exploited by tax preparation companies long enough. Please share this email with others you know in the pilot states of Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Wyoming, and let’s help make Direct File a success this year so it becomes available to the entire country next year.

Thank you,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

¹ TurboTax's Intuit Spent Record Amount Fighting IRS Direct File—and Failed
² TurboTax maker Intuit barred from advertising ‘free’ tax services without disclosing who’s eligible
³ Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free
⁴ IRS Reforms Free File Program, Drops Agreement Not to Compete With TurboTax