[HN Gopher] Show HN: A continuation of IRS Direct File that can ...
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Show HN: A continuation of IRS Direct File that can be self-hosted
the IRS recently open sourced most of Direct File, a tax tool it
has been working on for a few years now. unfortunately, due to
recent events, the IRS isn't working on it anymore. I decided to
pick up where they left off and I'm trying to get it ready for next
tax season the work behind Direct File is really interesting and I
made a lot of it available online to read as well -
https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/
Author : elijahwright_
Score : 196 points
Date : 2025-06-30 22:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| nxobject wrote:
| Thanks so much for keeping this going, and for the late 18F for
| open-sourcing these implementations... I hope there's a way we
| can institutionalize your efforts.
|
| As a side note, when the documentation page is viewed in a dark
| mode browser, I see black text on black background
| (https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/).
| elijahwright_ wrote:
| I'll fix the docs today, thanks
| McAlpine5892 wrote:
| Thank you for your work
| onetom wrote:
| the https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/direct-file.html link in
| the readme results in 404
| elijahwright_ wrote:
| sorry I changed the name, here's the correct URL -
| https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/reference.html
| onetom wrote:
| i'm not from the US, but i did work on forms related to
| government workflows.
|
| it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store facts about
| themselves and let some software figure out which of those facts
| are needed for filling out any form, which needs the usual
| personal facts.
|
| then one can review the required facts and decide which ones are
| they willing to share.
|
| in fact governments could even standardize the kind of info they
| are dealing with usually and when a citizen wants the government
| to do something, instead of filling out forms, they could provide
| their own, self-hosted fact db, run the govt's query and provide
| the results (after review)
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I think the post office could have been this, but the political
| will wasn't there. Separation of banking from taxation and the
| postal system from both of those for separation of concerns for
| compartmentalization was probably at the forefront of the minds
| of the founders, since Washington himself had run a spy network
| and been personally hunted by soldiers and mercenaries on their
| own turf during the revolution, so I can't say these aren't
| legitimate concerns, but they haven't exactly aged well. At the
| time of the revolution and directly after the union, there was
| no federal income tax anyway.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| > I think the post office could have been this
|
| Explain. Id like to.know
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I was responding to this aspect:
|
| > it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store
| facts about themselves
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_
| S...
|
| Hypothetically, you could have sent 0.01 to a friend and
| use the memo field as a poor man's postcard with free
| postage, provided in-system transactions were free, which
| they arguably ought to be, but likely never were or would
| be in actuality.
| bigums wrote:
| Sounds similar to what Tim Berners-Lee was working on with
| Solid (https://solidproject.org/about).
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Taxes work on "self assessment" basis meaning you, the taxpayer
| have the burden to declare all facts relevant to assessment of
| your tax and you pay the tax.
|
| Then, sometimes your case is picked for audit and then they
| check if what you declared is correct as per applicable laws or
| not.
|
| See, here is a small mom and pop shop... who owns that? Is the
| premises on rent? How much ? Is the rent deed valid and proper?
| Maybe you are paying less rent than declaring? Are you actually
| employing people you say you are? Are you paying them exactly
| you say you are paying?
|
| How would you ensure that fact db is not having funny data ?
|
| Say i am saying i am paying 100 bucks a week for fuel but fact
| is, my shop is next door to my home and i am just pocketing
| this cash daily. If i keep putting this 100 bucks weekly
| expense in this factdb, how will govt know.that i am not lying?
| wredcoll wrote:
| That's how they work _now_ in america. They don 't have to.
|
| As for fraud, the same way they check for lies now, cross
| reference reports and then audit.
| dawnerd wrote:
| It's my understanding that they have expected ranges certain
| things should be within that's considered normal and anything
| outside of that puts a higher risk of an audit or simple
| manual review/adjustment.
| cxr wrote:
| You're moving the goalposts; the purpose would be reducing
| toil (and possibly other costs) for the people who are
| currently tasked with filling out these types of forms.
|
| There's nothing in the comment you're responding to that
| suggests that it's instead meant to be a solution to the
| problem of the government (or any other org) being unable to
| trust the inputs to its systems or ameliorate the costs of
| bad actors at all.
|
| A person entering lies in their personal fact database
| tomorrow can submit the same lies on their personal income
| tax return today.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| never understood exactly what is the code they released. is it
| just the from filler that only works for people with a single w2
| and no stocks etc?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| _IRS Direct File on GitHub_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44182356 - June 2025
|
| https://chrisgiven.com/2025/06/saying-goodbye/
|
| https://chrisgiven.com/2025/05/direct-file-on-github/
|
| https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
|
| (In the latest version of the bill being negotiated in
| Congress, the language to sunset Direct File has been removed,
| but this of course could change due to the fluidity of the
| situation; regardless, we are all better off having learned
| from this and having access to the source code)
| elijahwright_ wrote:
| the code they released was everything that is necessary to run
| Direct File in development, but they removed code relating to
| MeF (the IRS's online submission API) and SADI (the IRS's auth
| system which is integrated with ID.me). most of the code is the
| backend, Fact Graph (which is a very complex rules engine), the
| client app (both the form and the screener when you go to
| directfile.irs.gov), and the state tax API
| EPWN3D wrote:
| Would absolutely love a command line. Maybe if I ever get free
| time and feel like dusting off my Java.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| For what it is worth, the Big Beautiful Bill contains this gem...
|
| As soon as practicable, and not later than 30 days after the date
| of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall
| ensure that the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program has
| been terminated.
|
| (This is the text of the bill on the website as of the time I
| posted this, it can change or be wrong now.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/te...)
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Not that I needed any more proof of how disgustingly anti-human
| the government has become. So depressing.
| leptons wrote:
| > disgustingly anti-human _the republicans_ have become
|
| FTFY
|
| Everything happening since the last election is 100% because
| republicans have control of all branches of government.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| It's gotten outright _infuriating_ that people keep blaming
| government for bad initiatives that are _solely_ the fault
| of Republicans.
|
| Getting real tired of people blaming "both sides" for
| everything bad the government does as if it's some sort of
| morally or intellectually superior viewpoint. It's a
| thought-ending cliche.
|
| Sure, both sides are drone-striking warmongers. Both sides
| are basically owned by corporations.
|
| But only one side is welcoming literal flag-waving Nazis
| into their midst and working to deport legal citizens and
| immigrants. Only one side is fighting to take food away
| from children in schools. Only one side is trying to take
| healthcare away from senior citizens. Only one side is
| trying to create a Christian white ethno-state.
|
| People try to accuse the left of trying to stifle freedom-
| of-speech, yet Trump is the one spreading rhetoric about
| wanting to jail journalists for daring to speak up against
| him.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| That is really awesome, which I could give more upvotes. I hope
| you can keep it running and get some support. (sry i've made it a
| life mission to avoid javascript when possible)
|
| It really is embarrassing how ineffective and useless the US gov
| has become.
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(page generated 2025-07-01 23:01 UTC)