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?
Is this common in Java?
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/9dd76a786ea69...
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...
Found the repo over here if anyone is curious.
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.
Favorite quote(s)
>But as I told the team as the end closed in, “We took a pipedream, and made it a policy choice.” No one can claim with a straight face that Direct File is impossible anymore; bringing it back requires only that our elected leaders make a different choice.
>What I mourn the most, though, is the dissolution of the team, the disregard for the vast impact they were poised and eager to deliver. The team itself is what I am proudest of from my time working on Direct File. Their manic dedication to the mission. The care they consistently took to get it right. The trust and love they had for each other.
> 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. § 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
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.
Why was the IRS-Public[0] group created for this, instead of using the existing irsgov[1] group?
Related discussion from last week:
IRS Direct File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44131901 - May 2025 (62 comments)
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Please note: As of two weeks ago, I no longer work at the IRS. I am writing solely in my personal capacity.
It's too bad the current Administration is going to kill DirectFile and has fired all the people who were working on it.
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.
Love that the repo has two commits and they're both "initial commit"
IRS knows what a bifunctor is. What an amazing day https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file/blob/9dd76a786ea69...
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.
Wait, the USA/IRS is not providing a free platform for individuals to fill their tax?
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.
Everyone is talking about having LLMs write software but what about having them delete code? That can be very hard in a legacy enterprise environment. I think dead code detection overlaps with security and that is a good way to sell that kind of code clean up. Having LLMs review your architecture is a fun exercise, being able to incorporate that feedback is a good measure for the dev teams.
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.
This code base is clean and well-crafted. I appreciate the extensive documentation. It’s unfortunate that Direct File was affected by budget cuts.
Seems like an anti-pattern to involve so many unique human perspectives on who owes what. An authority should establish what taxes are owed objectively, and the system should just send out invoices.
If you have a problem with that, build a robust appeal process. Essentially what we have now is an appeal process for every single person.
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?
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.
I wonder whether Cash App's free filing service (used it for the first time last year and it was very good even for my somewhat complicated taxes) is based on this?
Weren't they also working on a system that would send you a prefilled return with all information filled in the IRS already has?
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.
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.
> libs
Guys I knew it
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.
The fact graph service uses scala!
Thanks for sharing!
> The source code is only public because of federal law
I doubt contributions are welcome
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.
> 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.
Here's the announcement from one of the principal engineers:
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Let's not forget how IRS only goes after the small fishes in the pond. Billionaires get a free pass from them all the time.
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See also:
Saying Goodbye - https://chrisgiven.com/2025/06/saying-goodbye/