The IRS used a routine payment reminder this week to flag a detail that catches more taxpayers than the agency probably intends: its free Direct Pay tool will not work for everyone who tries it. Anyone who has gone more than six years without filing a federal return, or who has simply never filed one,…

Treasury’s own math on the government’s free federal e-filing tool comes down to one blunt fraction: fewer than one in every 200 tax returns filed for tax year 2024 went through Direct File. That single number, buried in a report Treasury sent Congress last October, is the central justification the department gives for suspending the…

The IRS’s experiment with a government-run, free tax-filing tool is over, at least for now. Treasury told Congress in an October 2025 report that the IRS would suspend Direct File, and a follow-up federal audit released this March confirms the tool’s own web page now tells former users it is “no longer available.” What’s left…

The Internal Revenue Service has begun issuing a digitally authenticated Tax Compliance Report that taxpayers can download directly from their IRS Individual Online Account, ending the routine of mailing off for a transcript just to prove a clean filing history. The report tells a lender, a licensing board or a landlord whether someone filed on…

The IRS spent late August laying out, in plain terms, the different ways a taxpayer can hand someone else legal standing to deal with a federal tax matter. For a family helping an aging parent manage Social Security paperwork, income-linked Medicare premiums, or a stack of unopened IRS notices, the distinction between two commonly confused…

Millions of taxpayers who asked for extra time to file their 2025 federal return are working against a hard deadline: Oct. 15, 2026, a Thursday. The Internal Revenue Service says extension filers do not need to wait until that date arrives, encouraging early submission because interest and penalties on any unpaid tax keep accumulating the…

Taxpayers who asked for more time to file their 2025 return still have a hard deadline ahead of them, and the IRS is using its late-August reminder to push people toward filing now instead of waiting until the last week. Free, guided software remains open for a large share of extension filers, but the income…

Millions of households pay for tax preparation they could get for free. The IRS and its partners offer several no-cost ways to file, from the government’s own online Direct File tool to volunteer sites that prepare returns in person. For a family expecting a modest refund, skipping the preparation fee can mean keeping an extra…

Millions of families pay a preparer $150 to $300 or more to file a return they could have filed for nothing. The IRS backs several free options, both online software and in-person help from trained volunteers, aimed squarely at working households, retirees, and anyone with a straightforward return. Knowing which door to walk through is…

Households earning roughly $67,000 or less can have their tax return prepared and filed for free by IRS-certified volunteers, no software subscription and no paid preparer required. The program is called VITA, and along with a companion program for older filers, it prepares millions of returns every year at libraries, community centers, and other local…