JIM RENACCI: The IRS Wants To Do Your Taxes — And Make Sure You Pay More

The ongoing government shutdown has the IRS in zombie mode: walk-in Tax Assistance Centers closed, some refunds delayed, and about half the agency’s employees on furlough.

Like most bureaucracies, the IRS is constantly trying to accumulate more responsibilities and a larger budget. This shutdown, and the staffing cuts that have come with it, offers Congress — especially my former committee, the Ways and Means Committee — a unique opportunity to refocus the agency on its core mission. They should ensure the IRS becomes more focused on clearing its backlog of customer service requests by getting rid of unnecessary initiatives and side quests that the agency never should have initiated in the first place.

They should begin by abolishing the Direct File program, the program where the IRS “assists” taxpayers in preparing and electronically submitting their returns — effectively putting the collection agency into the role of tax preparer, a function traditionally left to the private sector.

They say death and taxes are inevitable, but at least your doctor isn’t on the Grim Reaper’s payroll. He has an incentive to keep you alive, just like tax preparers have an incentive to get you the biggest refund possible.

The IRS is trying to change that. During Joe Biden’s presidency, the agency launched a pilot program for a new “Direct File” service, which it describes as “a free, simple way to file taxes.”

The only problem? This “free service” would be run by the IRS, the same entity tasked with every interest in ensuring you pay the maximum amount of taxes to the government possible.

There are, of course, already several “free, simple” ways to file taxes, including private-public partnerships between tax software companies and the IRS’s Free File program