[HN Gopher] IRS Direct File on GitHub
___________________________________________________________________
IRS Direct File on GitHub
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
Author : nickthegreek
Score : 372 points
Date : 2025-06-04 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chrisgiven.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chrisgiven.com)
| hydrogen7800 wrote:
| I figure that the source code is not the hard part of the IRS
| making this available to the public, but the interoperability
| with the revenue system, and its verified adherence to the
| current tax code. Couldn't those things still be killed by the
| administration even if the source code is available publicly?
| xhevahir wrote:
| Right, politicians and officials working on behalf of the tax-
| filing lobby could introduce lots of changes to the tax code
| with a view to making this software useless.
| glookler wrote:
| The point of open sourcing from a dying ship is that the
| groups that can modify this software and resell it all start
| from it as a baseline. Is TurboTax all lean mean code
| available at a low enough price while still meeting profit
| expectations if it needs drastic changes?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I mean... in some sense, it might be nice is the company
| doing your tax preparation is _not_ too lean and mean,
| their whole point is to eat the hit if they screw it up,
| right? The math is not actually hard.
|
| But, realistically, I guess if a self-service tax prep
| company messed up your taxes, they'd make sure you end up
| in arbitration.
| BryantD wrote:
| Yeah, absolutely. FWIW, the repo notes:
|
| "Direct File interprets the United States' Internal Revenue
| Code (26 USC) as plain language questions, the answers to which
| should be known to taxpayers without need of external
| instructions or publications. Taxpayers' answers are then
| translated into standard tax forms and transmitted to the IRS's
| Modernized e-File (MeF) API, which is available for authorized
| public use."
|
| So in theory it's useful now, but as you say it could easily
| change.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The tax code is riddled with euphemisms like EITC that don't
| mean what it says on the tin. There's no way normies can
| manage that without instructions.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I thought OP's point is that normies who have no idea what
| EITC is can simply answer a series of simpler questions
| that don't mention EITC, and the software figures out
| whether they can claim the EITC.
| gleenn wrote:
| Yes but there are plenty of companies or people that may
| want to know how the code works and would be motivated
| enough to read through the code to understand it and having
| it there in the public makes that possible.
| jandrese wrote:
| There are also ambiguous edge cases that can't be answered
| until someone is audited and the IRS and the Tax attorney
| hash it out in court.
|
| For example I installed Solar panels many years ago and
| read the exact wording on the Solar Tax Credit to try to
| figure out if you could include roof repairs under the
| panels in the credit. The wording was something like "all
| costs associated with a solar install". Every installer I
| talked to said yes, but it seemed dubious so I tried
| calling the IRS help line to get the answer and the help
| line was no help at all. A few years later and some court
| battles lost and that answer is now firmly a "no", making
| me glad I ignored the installer's advice.
|
| How is tax prep software supposed to handle a situation
| like that? Some of the for pay options include "audit
| protection", but I don't know how far that goes. I guess
| you can attempt to pass all liability on to the customer,
| but even that seems a bit risky.
|
| And definitely the IRS has its own jargon that doesn't
| always make sense to the layperson. Why, for example, is a
| form that you fill out once per tax year called a
| "schedule"? It doesn't organize anything by date or time!
| andylynch wrote:
| Schedule can also mean an organised table or list,
| especially in a formal context.
|
| Legislation very often has a bunch of them at the back,
| referred to from the main text.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Sounds like a business opportunity.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The whole point of the program was to eliminate that business
| opportunity.
| gowld wrote:
| Why? What's wrong with people getting paid to improve upon
| the government's work?
| braebo wrote:
| Nothing but that's not what was happening.
| acdha wrote:
| The idea is that normal people shouldn't have to pay to
| do something the government requires everyone to do. I've
| heard multiple non-Americans express amazement that
| people with simple jobs have to do anything other than
| confirm or perhaps update the data which the tax
| collectors already have because they weren't thinking of
| it from the perspective of being a useful marketing tool
| for fearmongering about the government.
| tombert wrote:
| I have told this story before here, but it's relevant.
|
| In 2021, I filed my 2020 taxes, and a few months later I
| get a letter from the IRS saying that I owed $8000
| because I forgot to report a large stock transaction. I
| owed $7000 + a $1000 fine.
|
| I wasn't mad at all about the $7000, I definitely owed
| that and it was just an oversight on my end, these things
| happen, and I was able to get the fine lowered by calling
| the IRS [1], so that wasn't a huge deal .
|
| What _did_ annoy me was _why do I have to do anything?_
| If the IRS knows about the transaction and is able to
| complain about me not paying enough, that suggests that
| they already have the information that I 'm sending them.
| Why make me buy software and copy information from a
| piece of paper into that software, just for the IRS to
| check it against the numbers that they already have?
|
| I understand that you might need to issue corrections,
| and maybe the software should exist for something like
| that, but it doesn't seem like it should exist otherwise.
|
| [1] Who at least in my case was actually really polite
| and helpful! I had heard horror stories but that was
| definitely not the case for me. The people I talked to
| were very sympathetic and nice.
| throw678937 wrote:
| They probably know less than you think. (Are you selling
| stuff at the farmer's market for cash? Did you gift your
| coin collection to your grandkids?) Making everyone file
| reduces fraud somewhat - but whether that's worth the
| country's time and effort is a different story.
| tombert wrote:
| You might be right, are there any numbers on that? I feel
| like primarily-cash businesses already underreport their
| income.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| > If the IRS knows about the transaction and is able to
| complain about me not paying enough, that suggests that
| they already have the information that I'm sending them.
|
| You mistakenly assume that simply knowing what is on the
| 1099-B form is sufficient to determine your tax on the
| gain. They don't know if you are married or single or
| head of household (filing status) in the current tax
| year. They don't know what some of your itemized
| deductions and other income not reported to them might be
| (which in turn, along with filing status, determines what
| marginal tax bracket you are in). They don't know if you
| are actually just a nominee for someone else's income.
| These are just a few examples. They don't know any of
| this stuff until you tell them by filing your complete
| return.
| xp84 wrote:
| > They don't know if you are married or single or head of
| household (filing status) in the current tax year. They
| don't know what some of your itemized deductions and
| other income not reported to them might be
|
| I think you're misinterpreting the GP's point. Clearly,
| at least in our current system, it is essential to tell
| the IRS the parts of the return that they don't already
| know such as what are your expenses, deductions, marital
| status, etc.
|
| But the absurd thing is that the capture of the IRS by
| the paid tax prep scammers has prevented them from simply
| showing you what's on your tax transcripts and having you
| click "Agree" or "Modify" for each one. Instead, you get
| your own copy of the 1099-B, 1099-DIV, 1099-INTs, and are
| administered a pointless "honesty test" to see if you'll
| type in the same numbers they have, or be automatically
| punished.
|
| Obviously, Direct File was ideally situated to offer this
| feature since IRS has the data themselves, and simply
| populating the numbers is a highly efficient way of
| ingesting the data into your return.
| tombert wrote:
| I'd be surprised if they don't know that I'm married,
| considering I've mentioned that I'm married on every tax
| return for the last nine years, so they could send me a
| form with all the stuff that they _do_ know about and ask
| if they need me to correct anything, or if I have
| anything else to declare. They could ask "Are you still
| married? Are you still married to the same person?" and
| update stuff.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Solving a government-created problem shouldn't be a
| business opportunity, the government just shouldn't
| create the problem.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| Piggybacking, I think the "hard part" also includes the decades
| of success that the tax prep lobby's had in protecting its
| business interests at the cost of US citizen's welfare.
| Although the number of states that provide free direct filing
| has grown from last year -- which I only remember to be
| substantially less than the 25 who do so today -- it's unclear
| what the problem is with the remaining 25 including DC where I
| live
| freeone3000 wrote:
| I do not know of this capability currently, but if it has
| enough for eFile, it can also be used to generate a paper
| return.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| I wouldn't say interop is a huge deal, the main time and cost
| sink is translating the recursive Gordian knots of tax law into
| a logically cohesive structure that can be evaluated
| programmatically. And then you (ideally) must _prove_ its
| correctness.
|
| Imagine pair programming with a tax lawyer. I'd rather eat my
| own hands.
| zb3 wrote:
| https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
| jmisavage wrote:
| Found the repo over here if anyone is curious.
|
| https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Better fork it quick before some ideologue deletes it and
| threatens to imprison anyone who looks at it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is a service. What happens if some ideologue turns off
| whatever is listening on the government's end? Unless this
| forked version will then print out a bunch of forms for
| someone to physically mail in, owning this software without
| being able to communicate to a digital host is useless.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| > Unless this forked version will then print out a bunch of
| forms for someone to physically mail in
|
| Well yes, this is in essence what tax return preparation
| software has always been; The end result is a completed set
| of values to fill into the boxes of form 1040 (and whatever
| additional forms are deemed to be required), which can then
| be filed electronically or written/printed on paper to be
| returned at an office or by mail.
| 90s_dev wrote:
| Or just glance at the code out of idle curiosity and move on
| with our lives?
| timewizard wrote:
| Never turn down an opportunity to spew breathless hyperbole
| into Hacker News!
| skrebbel wrote:
| Wow public domain license! Smart move, I assume those disgruntled
| devs who "joined a project to explore the "future of tax filing"
| in the private sector" can now easily fork it and compete with
| TurboTax directly (with, I hope, a much better product at a lower
| price). Normally that'd feel a bit scummy but in this case I
| can't fault them for it.
|
| Here's to hoping they can outcompete TurboTax so brutally that
| Intuit won't be able to pay for all those lobbyists anymore.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| IIRC public domain is actually the "default" for code released
| by the government
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Yes, works of the US Federal Government are public domain. It
| gets complicated when state governments, contractors, etc.
| are involved, but Direct File was in-house work by USDS/18F.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Although it is written in the "LICENSE" file for purposes of
| uniformity and GitHub compatibility, a dedication to the Public
| Domain is not a "license". As you can see, they waive all their
| rights to claim copyright protection, and therefore, no license
| is possible; no license is necessary to use it for any purpose.
|
| And yes, "As a work of the US Government" it is dedicated to
| the Public Domain by law.
| gowld wrote:
| TurboTax already has competitors.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > Releasing Direct File's source code demonstrates that the IRS
| is fulfilling its obligations under the SHARE IT Act[1] (three
| weeks ahead of schedule!).
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/9566
| pimlottc wrote:
| Here's the announcement from one of the principal engineers:
|
| https://chrisgiven.com/2025/05/direct-file-on-github/
| dang wrote:
| Thanks - I've changed the URL to that from
| https://www.404media.co/directfile-open-source-irs-tax-filin...
| above, since the latter continues to be signup-walled.
| no-reply wrote:
| If anybody wants to read the 404 article -
| https://archive.is/U6j4b
| rsingel wrote:
| You could also just sign up and read it on their site, and
| consider subscribing.
|
| Journalism is labor
| 90s_dev wrote:
| The ad model won.
| joshmanders wrote:
| I'd agree typically but paywalling open source government
| software just to talk about it is wild behavior.
| cAtte_ wrote:
| how is the software being paywalled here?
| joshmanders wrote:
| They're talking about it but to actually see the thing
| they're talking about you have to pay before the part of
| the article that links to it is clickable
| cAtte_ wrote:
| or you can just google it? it's not like the source code
| is exclusively held by 404media and you must pay them to
| view it, or something. would you have the same opinion if
| e.g. the article was the same but just didn't link to the
| repo?
| rsingel wrote:
| If you want indie publications to survive, please reconsider
| punishing sites that are sign-up walled.
| xp84 wrote:
| If they intend for a mass market to read their articles,
| indie publications should find a way to sell a user _an
| article_ for a fair price. Especially in the context of
| coming from a news aggregator site, it 's absurd that I'm
| going to buy a _recurring subscription_ for Tax Software
| Quarterly, Yacht Week, Greg 's TV Reviews etc. The number
| of distinct domains I click through to from HN alone would
| be hundreds of dollars a month if I'm starting
| subscriptions for each one.
|
| I hate and block ads, since they literally screw up the
| functioning of the page now, so I don't think they should
| "just have ads and be open" -- but I think expecting
| average non-journalists to sign up for subscriptions to
| multiple "national newspapers" and a half dozen news
| magazines is absurd, which is why people here don't like
| paywalls, and bypass them wherever possible.
| cAtte_ wrote:
| if someone is unwilling to pay for access to an entire
| collection of articles, i'd find it very unlikely that
| they pay for a single article. unless it's an
| outrageously low price like 10 cents or something
| dustbunny wrote:
| just want to chime in to say how awesome and easy doing your own
| taxes in canada is. takes me like an hour
| mig39 wrote:
| Even easier if your employer automatically syncs with CRA. No
| filling in forms at all.
|
| In other countries, the government does the taxes for you, and
| sends you a pre-filled form that you can amend or change.
| dustbunny wrote:
| yeah employer has always synced, so it (wealth simple)
| autofills basically everything. then i just add my family
| specific stuff
| xmprt wrote:
| just want to chime in to say that it's around that fast in the
| US as well
|
| Most people will just have to enter their W2, choose the
| standard deduction, and then click submit. There are free tools
| that do this already like FreeTaxUSA.
|
| That said, I have 2 gripes with the current system:
|
| 1. companies like TurboTax lobbying to prevent the government
| from building their own tool... if TurboTax is genuinely better
| then people will still use it even if the govt builds a tool.
|
| 2. the tax code being so complex that it's profitable for
| wealthy people to avoid taxes with special deductions and hire
| lawyers to defend them from the overstretched IRS.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| == it's around that fast in the US as well==
|
| Do you have a source for this claim, because I found this:
|
| ==Individual income tax return filing is the most time-
| consuming element of the tax system, with the average
| taxpayer spending 13 hours to comply with the Form 1040. For
| individuals with business income, the average amount of time
| it takes to file taxes is even higher: 24 hours.==
|
| https://money.com/filing-taxes-time-money-burden/
| xmprt wrote:
| Maybe I'm just extremely fast but I can't imagine it taking
| that long because like I mentioned, it's just those 3 steps
| for most taxpayers. It's hard to explain unless you've
| actually filed taxes in the US which most foreigners
| haven't.
|
| The estimates you shared are based on survey responses so
| you'd have to take them with a grain of salt. All the other
| websites are repeating the same survey.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| 13 hours is wild. I bought a house, got married, sold a
| bunch of stock, and qualified for a bunch of deductions
| last year. We filed jointly in maybe an hour and a half,
| including finding all of the paperwork. I'm pretty good
| with numbers and instructions, so I could see 4-6 being the
| average.
|
| It was through freetaxusa, maybe handwriting balloons the
| job a bit? But it looks like only 14% file physically.
| weberer wrote:
| 13 hours is an insane estimate. Its never taken me more
| than an hour or two. There's no way that's the average
| uticus wrote:
| personally i'd prefer a tax system that was easy enough to
| _understand_ in an hour. like, really simple, instead of a
| complex bag of sticks and carrots. less waste, less time, more
| clarity on how much productivity is partitioned off for
| government services.
|
| would really render moot the "TurboTax lobbying", "government
| already has info", etc conversations.
| deepsun wrote:
| I haven't seen any evidence on "government already has info".
| It might get all the info if they send a taxpayer into audit.
| But there's no indication it really knows without audits.
| uticus wrote:
| sorry, doesn't apply to US, but does apply to other Western
| governments (note i'm not endorsing this, just pointing out
| it exists): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dreading-
| taxes-countries-s...
| deepsun wrote:
| Yes, although it's not always ideal too. E.g. for
| personal business you're required to conduct all
| transactions through a dedicated business bank account.
| But it's easily avoidable by using a different account,
| and there are cases when you cannot use the business bank
| account even if you want. But taxes are computed
| automatically from only that bank account. To stay
| honest, you need to decline automatic tax calculation and
| file separate forms to pay more taxes, no one does that.
| Spoom wrote:
| No, the government already has _almost_ all of your
| information every year from the start. Every time you get a
| W-2, a copy is sent to the IRS. Same with the vast majority
| of most tax forms. That why, if you lose any of your forms
| (at least the ones that say something akin to "This
| information is being furnished to the Internal Revenue
| Service."), you can request them from the IRS[1].
|
| Some investment-related returns aren't sent to the IRS but
| I would estimate that for 90% of people, their taxes could
| be accurately calculated by the information the IRS has on
| file.
|
| Additionally, I guarantee that these calculations are being
| made by the government _anyway_. If you file a tax return
| that is mathematically incorrect, you are _very_ likely to
| receive a correction letter from the IRS[2]. This isn 't an
| audit, it's just a letter saying that your taxes were wrong
| and they redid them for you, with a new outcome.
|
| 1. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/transcript-types-for-
| individ... (see "Wage and income transcript")
|
| 2. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/understanding-your-
| cp12-noti...
| boznz wrote:
| NZ Tax system is like this, takes me an hour to do my company
| yearly returns on their website, an hour every month for the
| GST and 15 mins every month for the payroll and kiwisaver
| (pension) of two employees.
|
| The fact they have an "other" category in the IR10 form that
| captures the breakdown means I don't have to worry too much
| about terms that mean nothing to me or my business and 90% of
| my earnings can just goes in that. No need for an accountant
| as long as you have good separation of business and personal
| transactions.
|
| Doing tax is always going to be unpleasant, I don't see any
| downside to the government making it easier for the person
| filing the return.
| weberer wrote:
| People have been fighting that battle for a while now. It
| never seems to get off the ground
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax
| ac29 wrote:
| Moving from a progressive tax structure to a (mostly)
| regressive one is a bad idea, so I am glad FairTax never
| went anywhere.
|
| I am all for simplifying the tax code but consumption taxes
| are the wrong way to go about it.
| mashlol wrote:
| What makes it easier than US taxes?
| fhdkweig wrote:
| It takes me half an hour with FreeTaxUSA . It can be easy, but
| TurboTax doesn't like their software to be easy for some
| reason.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| "some reason" is that they upsell you on additional features
| and "audit protection" in case you misuse their complicated
| software.
| nulbyte wrote:
| It took me about that long to do both fed and state with Free
| File Fillable Forms. I was so surprised, I wondered why I
| didn't check it out sooner. I think most Americans can do
| this just as easily.
|
| I know folks outside the U.S. like to riff on us for our
| complicated taxes and the pay-for filing lobbies, and yes,
| they have reason to. But, I really think the issue is that we
| folk in the U.S. are just too scared to try what really is a
| simpler method.
| shrinks99 wrote:
| The Canadian government doesn't provide a DirectFile
| equivalent. The closest thing we have is Wealthsimple's tax
| software which just _happens_ to be free (and for what it's
| worth, in my experience, is also pretty good).
|
| I would love for the Canadian government to release free tax
| software analogous to DirectFile!
| ctkhn wrote:
| Love that the repo has two commits and they're both "initial
| commit"
| dylan604 wrote:
| i've done that when i forgot to add some necessary files in the
| initial initial commit. since the adding the forgotten files
| did not include any changes warranting a different message, it
| lets me know i was a knucklehead and the commits are meant be
| considered the same commit. it's much faster than looking up to
| see if there's a way to amend an existing commit with
| additional files, and then going through the process of
| actually doing it. my use of git is
| add/commit/push/clone/switch/fetch. after that, it's 100% look
| it up and hope i'm not going to bork my repo by following some
| SO thread
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| For what it's worth, you can still do it with those commands,
| though I understand part of the point is that you don't
| necessarily remember all of the options for them. But in this
| case, it should be simple: git add .
| git commit --amend -m "initial commit" git push -f
| origin HEAD
|
| I don't know when `--amend` was added. I used to do a squash
| rebase but this is much nicer.
| monkpit wrote:
| git commit --amend --no-edit
| sotix wrote:
| The government required them to scrub the commit history.
| Hilarious that they used that message for the second commit.
| divbzero wrote:
| Related discussion from last week:
|
| _IRS Direct File_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44131901 - May 2025 (62
| comments)
| paxys wrote:
| TurboTax isn't "trying to kill" it they have successfully killed
| it. Intuit donated $1M to Trump's inaugration fund, and the Trump
| administation subsequently ended support for Direct File (which
| I'm assuming is why it was open sourced). The IRS will no longer
| accept returns directly. 18F itself was disbanded by doge, so
| even though the code is open source no one is going to continue
| to develop it.
| janeerie wrote:
| This isn't true - you can still submit through Direct File:
| https://directfile.irs.gov/
| paxys wrote:
| For the 2024 tax season yes. Funding bill removes it for 2025
| onward.
| janeerie wrote:
| Yes, but you may want to reword this part, since it implies
| that DF is already shut down: "The IRS will
| no longer accept returns directly."
| pimlottc wrote:
| > "The IRS will no longer accept returns directly."
|
| Where are you finding that quote, I don't see it on the
| Direct File homepage [0]
|
| EDIT: Ah, I see now, it was from paxys's original post
| [1], I assumed it was meant to be an official quote from
| the IRS somewhere.
|
| 0: https://directfile.irs.gov/
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44183593
| janeerie wrote:
| This was in the post I was responding to.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I'm confused, the post you responded just says:
|
| > For the 2024 tax season yes. Funding bill removes it
| for 2025 onward.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44183593
| jadbox wrote:
| Sigh. How much did cutting direct file really save?!
| kelnos wrote:
| Irrelevant. Those in power don't actually care about
| saving money. They care about doing what their deep-
| pocketed donors want them to do, as well as fulfilling
| their ideology, however misguided and backward it may be.
| paxys wrote:
| It was never about saving. The new budget literally adds
| $2.4 trillion to the federal defecit.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It makes it more expensive. But the important figure was
| the million dollar bribe.
| thuanao wrote:
| It was cut because tax preparing companies pay the
| politicians to cut it.
| aksss wrote:
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/summary?id=D0000...
| eamann wrote:
| It's a bit disappointing that a seemingly official project isn't
| using commit signing for verification and non-repudiation. It's
| open source, great! But it's also pretty massive (i.e. hard to
| review everything) and the chance of a bad actor sticking code in
| something so critical as tax filings.
| dylan604 wrote:
| what could it really do though? any discrepancies will just be
| settled in an audit. of course, you are providing name,
| address, SSN, bank account info, but what malevolent entity
| doesn't already have that data about you anyways? besides,
| trust us, we're the government is good enough already! /s
| deepsun wrote:
| Kinda. Since it's Public Domain, there's little to no use in
| signing the code, because they explicitly forfeited any rights
| to it.
|
| Public Domain means you can legally take their code, riddle it
| with malware, and distribute, claiming that's the real and true
| Direct File source code, and you are its author. What you do
| with malware is a different legal issue of course.
|
| So I'm not sure proving you are commit owner by signing it is
| really helpful if anyone can do it as well, and there's no
| copyright holder to decide who's right.
| justinrubek wrote:
| Copyright doesn't have anything to do with it, even remotely.
| I don't care who owns it or who claims to own it. But it may
| be useful to verify that the commit came from the government.
| pfg_ wrote:
| You don't know what they used internally. There are two commits
| on github which just dump the code from whatever they used for
| version control for the past two years, and no further
| development will take place.
| uticus wrote:
| https://deepwiki.com/IRS-Public/direct-file has some good
| insights, ie "tell me about fact graph"
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| Wow, deepwiki is really cool
| ronbenton wrote:
| Sadly this program is being killed by the current admin. This
| repo looks great. The scala fact graph is super neat and there is
| clearly a lot of care that went into making the tutorial for it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm sure everyone working on this knew it was doomed before the
| first line of code was written, and that it would be killed as
| soon as the next (R) was in charge. It was a great
| accomplishment to get working software released before that
| happened, but I'm sure nobody was kidding themselves into
| thinking it would last. The pay-to-file tax lobby is too strong
| and corrupt.
| afavour wrote:
| I don't know about that. Inertia is a strong force but it
| goes in both directions. Had this administration been a
| Democratic one four years might be long enough to establish
| it strongly enough that it would be very difficult to remove.
| Look at the Affordable Care Act. Imperfect though it was,
| Republicans have pledged over and over that they're going to
| get rid of it but when it power it seems they just can't.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I hope you're right, but this administration so far has
| found almost no limit to the number of projects, lives,
| roles and institutions it can destroy or at least attempt
| to destroy. And the party that is supposed to be acting as
| the Opposition is basically letting them do whatever they
| want unhindered. Unless you consider "holding up little
| signs and making frowny-faces" to count as "doing
| something."
| pjc50 wrote:
| I don't think so - the destructiveness of the current
| administration is really unprecedented.
| analogwzrd wrote:
| A couple of decades ago tax code transparency and making it
| easier and cheaper to file your taxes would have been a very
| Republican policy. Point taken that the current
| administration is particularly destructive, but I wouldn't
| expect Democrats to be very staunch in support this either.
| The tax/accountant lobby would influence both parties.
| timerol wrote:
| Who among us has not accidentally made a new repo as just a
| submodule pointer instead of actually committing the files?
| https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/commit/2f3ebd66932...
|
| It's also fun that, because this is from the US, they can't just
| use CC0, but instead need to clarify that this must be public
| domain, separately from the worldwide CC0.
| runako wrote:
| Another way of saying this: Creative Commons, based in
| California, USA, did not publish a license that can be used by
| one of the largest domestic authors of software.
|
| Less snarkily, I do wonder about the discrepancy there.
| gowld wrote:
| Category Error. Public Domain is _not_ a license. It is a
| state of being.
|
| Creative Commons is a worldwide organization, not a
| jurisdiction-specfic organization. Creative Commons does not
| have the authority to harmonize laws worldwide.
|
| https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/pdm/
|
| https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/cc0/
| deepsun wrote:
| In other words, think of Copyright. A Copyright holder can
| apply any license they like, and change the licenses for
| new versions whenever they like. Public Domain is explicit
| forfeiting the Copyright, which means authors cannot
| enforce any license (and anyone can just take their work
| and declare it it's theirs, apply licenses etc).
|
| PS: AFAIK, however, Authorship rights are different from
| Copyright, and cannot be given/passed as Copyrights, at
| least in US.
| adamdecaf wrote:
| There's quite the mix of languages involved! --
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| ------------ Language files
| blank comment code ---------------------
| ----------------------------------------------------------
| YAML 452 158 693
| 161655 JSON 396 1
| 0 155975 JavaScript 7
| 21 4513 123150 TypeScript
| 741 7913 19645 80869 XML
| 66 5208 1006 60935 Java
| 725 7380 2283 37863 Scala
| 272 3275 1423 25395 CSV
| 146 0 0 25335 Markdown
| 86 5019 21 9228 SVG
| 12 5 1749 9130 HTML
| 39 52 4 4073 Maven
| 16 61 87 1963 SCSS
| 47 380 85 1662 Scheme
| 5 121 0 864 Python
| 13 185 96 668 Bourne
| Shell 17 94 127
| 541 DOS Batch 2 30
| 0 268 CSS 1
| 17 0 81 Properties
| 9 0 24 60 Text
| 3 1 0 35 TOML
| 1 6 0 26 Dockerfile
| 1 8 1 19 INI
| 1 0 0 7 SQL
| 4 0 0 5 ----------
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| ---- SUM: 3062 29935
| 31757 699807 ------------------------------------
| -------------------------------------------
| epcoa wrote:
| Other than the flourish of adding some Scala to enterprisey
| Java there is absolutely nothing atypical about this bog
| enterprisey application. It's a JS/TS/Java app, nothing else
| stands out.
|
| Listing every config language and a few lines of CI or whatever
| scripts shit is misleading.
|
| I see nothing other than typical boring enterprise/big gov crap
| here (which is fine, and expected).
| tonymet wrote:
| IRS does something good.
|
| ITT: WhAt if "the administration" (we don't speak his name) tries
| to prevent us from using it.
|
| Guys, Trump isn't anti- everything you like. He doesn't give a
| crap about open source.
| prophesi wrote:
| Intuit and their millions in lobbying efforts might change the
| administration's thoughts on that.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| * IRS Direct File launched in 2024 after being created via the
| Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act in 2024.
|
| * The Trump administration is preparing to sign into law a new
| budget that orders the immediate termination of the Direct File
| program (see SEC. 112207 "TASK FORCE ON THE TERMINATION OF
| DIRECT FILE").
|
| * 18F, the agency within the federal government probably most
| responsible for championing and promoting open source
| development (and just all-around providing good digital
| services at a significantly lower cost), was eliminated by the
| Trump administration in March.
|
| I know that you are probably a busy person, like many of us
| here; Still, I would encourage you to take some time each week
| to become informed about what is (or isn't) happening in
| politics rather than just offering knee-jerk reactions based on
| partisan feelings. It really is important.
| const_cast wrote:
| Except that Trump has already prevented us from using it. He
| axed it, beginning next tax season.
|
| It's not a boogie-man, Trump really does just suck. He's anti
| like, anything even good-adjacent.
| lagniappe wrote:
| I see you've discovered the reddit-to-HN flywheel.
| internet_points wrote:
| > Direct File also incorporates the Fact Graph, a declarative,
| XML-based knowledge graph data structure that is designed to
| reason about incomplete information, such as a partially
| completed tax return. The Fact Graph is written in the Scala
| programming language; it runs on the JVM on the backend and is
| transpiled via Scala.js to run on the client as well. Direct
| File's Fact Graph is not domain-specific, and it may be useful to
| revenue agencies and as a reference for business rules engine
| implementations.
| MrLeap wrote:
| Interesting, I want to read more about this.
| uticus wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44183845
| timhigins wrote:
| The code that defines how the fact graph works is here:
| https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/tree/main/direct-f...
|
| but the actual tax definitions that deal with facts and derived
| calculation are here: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-
| file/tree/main/direct-f...
|
| See for example the standard deduction and tax rate
| calculations https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-
| file/blob/main/direct-f... https://github.com/IRS-
| Public/direct-file/blob/main/direct-f...
|
| I imagine these are based on the MeF (Modernized e-File)
| schemas because the system needs to transform the input data
| into XML MeF schemas to submit electronically to the MeF system
| (See https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/modernized-e-file-
| mef-s...)
| pimlottc wrote:
| Aside from the code, there's also a ton of great design documents
| and notes under /docs/design [0], including detailed process
| diagrams for many of the user flows (unfortunately not directly
| viewable online since they're within zip files; see flow1.zip and
| flow2.zip)
|
| 0: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-
| file/tree/main/docs/des...
| 90s_dev wrote:
| Is this common in Java?
|
| https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/9dd76a786ea69...
| koolba wrote:
| It is if you're doing government style work and you want have a
| job for life creating code that nobody else can read.
|
| Or if you're in the business of selling extremely wide aspect
| ratio monitors.
| tempest_ wrote:
| It is nested sure but the entire thing fits on 1080p monitor
| timewizard wrote:
| Well... depending on your default level of zoom.
|
| After staring at code for 12 hours a day for a few decades
| my zoom is 125% by default.
| 90s_dev wrote:
| Careful, at this rate your zoom level will be an
| unreadable 900% after only a few centuries...
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Better make those monitors curved
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| That's reactive programming in Java, where you return a
| callback to be run when an operation completes.
|
| The giveaway is the Mono<T> return type.
| deepsun wrote:
| My eyeballs bleed, and I'm pretty comfortable with Java for
| many years.
|
| I see the most of it stems from reactive-style programming
| (reactor.core.publisher.Mono).
|
| Maybe they just tried to fit into one screen? Anyway I'd ask to
| simplify it, if I was a their team lead.
| mcv wrote:
| I've seen similar things, in Java as well as some other
| languages. It's obviously not the preferred way of doing it.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Unreadable+undebuggable has been the preferred way of doing
| it for as long as I have seen software
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Seems perfectly readable to me, and I haven't used Java
| professionally in over a decade. What specifically do you
| find problematic?
| jryan49 wrote:
| I can tell you as a person working in a spring boot webflux
| shop that is pretty bad code. You really don't want to nest
| that much. Using atomic references outside the reactive flow is
| a huge red flag that they don't know how to program in webflux
| properly. Not that webflux is easy to use at all and the dx is
| garbage.
| okeuro49 wrote:
| With virtual threads it's difficult to see WebFlux being used
| in new projects.
| xyst wrote:
| If you are a non-Java developer, it does look daunting. But in
| my opinion it's much much better use of the Java streams api
| and reactor library that I have seen compared to most shitty
| corp firms.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| The atomics are goofy, but reactor can often lead to messy code
| structure when you actually need sequential blocking behavior.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Yes and no. This is a common pattern, but implemented very
| lazily. Most of this can (and probably should) be refactored
| out to separate classes/functions.
|
| But no, I don't think this would faze most Java devs. It's ugly
| and bad practice, but more or less acceptable depending on
| personal taste. It works, at least.
|
| Point of interest: LLMs tend to go too far in the opposite
| direction with code like this. They will break _everything_
| apart into functions or classes, even trivial one-line lambdas.
| I find that even more obnoxious than the monstrosity you
| linked.
| tomashubelbauer wrote:
| > .onErrorResume
|
| I dislike Java but if it can get me back to the On Error Resume
| Next days I might reconsider.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Is this what people have to do when they don't have the C#
| async/await autogenerated state machine?
| tomsmeding wrote:
| Looks like callback hell, but in Java. Async/await would solve
| it, but it's Java.
| piker wrote:
| > libs
|
| Guys I knew it
| yonran wrote:
| What would it take for an individual or small business to run a
| version of this locally? To file, you need an MeF account with
| IRS; does the IRS grant those freely? And to import W2s and
| 1099s, it seems that there is a DataImportService interface but
| unfortunately there is no implementation and the APIs to IRS are
| not public.
|
| If the Biden administration wanted to break the tax software
| oligopoly, they should have focused on making the government's
| own interfaces open.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| > The source code is only public because of federal law
|
| I doubt contributions are welcome
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| What is the core reason for the government in the US to not
| provide a simple online tax filing portal like we generally have
| in Europe.
|
| It is pre-filled with the known incomes so for the best majority
| of people filling their taxes is a 1 minute exercise.
|
| This also helps, I guess, to have the taxes flow in.
| hoten wrote:
| lobbying on behalf of the tax filing industry
|
| additionally, the US has (one of?) the most complex tax systems
| in the world. In part b/c most of it is carve outs...on behalf
| of various lobbyist groups / catering to specific voting
| blocks.
| alemanek wrote:
| That is still no excuse.
|
| The majority of the population of the US claims the standard
| deduction and has all their income in the form of W2 or 1099
| which is reported to the IRS by the employer. Those people
| can be served by a return free filing system.
|
| The minority which have more complicated taxes can still file
| like they do today. But even adding on investment income and
| housing related deductions the IRS likely has enough
| information to calculate what is owed.
|
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of better.
| weberer wrote:
| Entering your income is easy enough if you're a salaried
| employee with a W2 form. The time consuming part is searching
| for and entering deductions. The tax code is ridiculously
| complex and there are forms for all sorts of deductions.
| jonas21 wrote:
| 90% of people take the standard deduction, which takes maybe
| 10 seconds to enter.
| timewizard wrote:
| The same reason the US moves more of the worlds money through
| commercial and investment services hosted here.
|
| Ask anyone in the EU who has lived in one country and earned a
| paycheck from a different one.
|
| Anyways, give it time, the EU is currently working to make it's
| tax system more complicated to solve some of the long standing
| continental issues, and to make the EU system more like the US
| one.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The EU doesn't have a federal tax system for individuals.
| Sivart13 wrote:
| this was supposed to be exactly that
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| I enjoyed walking through some of their docs which documented
| decisions and deliverables. Thought for sure it would have just
| been a dump of source code with little to no context.
| vagab0nd wrote:
| Ok we now have "law is code".
|
| When can we have "code is law"? Write the code as source of truth
| and generate the law from it.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| That's what a smart contract is meant to represent, and they
| get taken advantage of every single day.
| timewizard wrote:
| The law has better properties when it comes to undefined
| behavior than code does.
| colelyman wrote:
| I went to the link thinking that I could now file my taxes with
| the IRS through GitHub, which I honestly have mixed feelings
| about.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| That's an idea... Make a fork, add a file at
| taxpayers/${SSN}.yaml describing your return in terms of
| income/deductions/circumstances, make sure it lints
| successfully, and then submit a PR for the IRS to review. If
| it's merged, CI/CD initiates a bank payment/withdrawal. If you
| get audited, resolve the conflicts and update the PR.
| thuanao wrote:
| In my experience the paper forms are so much easier and more
| reliable than using tax software. A pen and a form _just works_.
| No account logins and passwords, no janky UI, no advertisements,
| no issues saving your progress... The instructions are much
| better too. Each box is numbered and there 's an instruction
| manual detailing what to put in that box. If you make mistakes
| the IRS will simply correct you.
| pfg_ wrote:
| The problem I had with the papers is they don't tell you when
| you need to have another form. Guided question software will
| ask questions to determine if you need forms.
| timhigins wrote:
| > Exempted Code
|
| > Not all source code, documentation and metadata used in the
| development of Direct File is included in this repository.
| Specifically, any code or data that is considered Personally
| Identifiable Information (PII), Federal Tax Information (FTI),
| Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU), or source code developed for
| National Security Systems (NSS), as defined in 40 U.S.C. SS
| 11103, is exempt. Due to these restrictions, certain pieces of
| functionality have been removed or rewritten.
|
| Very curious about what these pieces are that were removed
| czhu12 wrote:
| Given this project is being drained of resources by the new
| admin, is anyone in the know able to comment on how hard this
| would be to take, and stand up, as a competitor to turbo tax?
|
| Presumably, any Intuit competitors will be given a 10 year
| headstart worth many millions, maybe billions?
| foolswisdom wrote:
| Is there a reason you'd need to do so? What is freetaxusa.com
| missing that direct file gives you (other than the fact that
| direct file is free and supported by the government itself)?
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