Comment by possibleworlds

They only just launched Direct File after years of lobbying to prevent such a system by a consortium of accounting software companies[0]. If it falls apart people will continue to be forced to pay money to these companies just to file their tax.

As a comparison, in my country you could submit your own tax return using government supplied desktop software since 1999, and in 2015 that software was replaced with a web product. 1 in 3 people submit their own tax returns using this product.

[0] https://thisisunpacked.substack.com/p/irs-direct-tax-filing-...