IRS tax filing software released to the people as free software

IRS Direct File getting released as free software is a big win for free software advocates

Last week, the IRS published the majority of Direct File's source code to GitHub, with one of the people who worked on Direct File noting that "establishing trust with taxpayers was core to our approach for designing and building Direct File." IRS Direct File, commonly referred to as Direct File, is a tax-filing program offered by the IRS that allows US taxpayers to prepare and electronically file federal income tax returns at no cost. The majority of Direct File's source code getting uploaded to GitHub is a step forward for free software, both because of Direct File's scale and what it represents: that there is still a lot of power in collective action. It will protect the work of its developers regardless of whether Direct File will be offered for the 2025 tax season.

Your letters to the IRS helped push the needle. When we called on free software advocates in late March to ask that Direct File be released as free software, we cited a need for transparency among other reasons why it is the IRS's duty to release Direct File as free software. We asked the free software community to advocate for freedom-respecting electronic filing by writing to the IRS Commissioner, and you answered the call.

There clearly is a ways to go in establishing a user-friendly way for governments to share their code. GitHub is still owned and controlled by a major proprietary software company, but when enough of us tell our government officials and representatives that we need to have our user freedoms respected, they listen. We shouldn't have to ask our leaders to respect our rights, but we don't have a choice. We must continue using our voices to protect user freedom now and long into the future. Thank you for speaking up for free software.

This work, "United States IRS" is adapted from "Logo of the Internal Revenue Service" © 2022 and "Flag of the United States" © 2017. Both images are works of the United States Department of the Treasury, taken or made as part of an employee's official duties. As works of the U.S. federal government, these images are in the public domain in the United States. "United States IRS" © 2025 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by the Free Software Foundation.