"Direct File interprets the United States' Internal Revenue Code (26 USC) as plain language questions, the answers to which should be known to taxpayers without need of external instructions or publications. Taxpayers' answers are then translated into standard tax forms and transmitted to the IRS's Modernized e-File (MeF) API, which is available for authorized public use."
So in theory it's useful now, but as you say it could easily change.
The tax code is riddled with euphemisms like EITC that don't mean what it says on the tin. There's no way normies can manage that without instructions.
I thought OP's point is that normies who have no idea what EITC is can simply answer a series of simpler questions that don't mention EITC, and the software figures out whether they can claim the EITC.
There are also ambiguous edge cases that can't be answered until someone is audited and the IRS and the Tax attorney hash it out in court.
For example I installed Solar panels many years ago and read the exact wording on the Solar Tax Credit to try to figure out if you could include roof repairs under the panels in the credit. The wording was something like "all costs associated with a solar install". Every installer I talked to said yes, but it seemed dubious so I tried calling the IRS help line to get the answer and the help line was no help at all. A few years later and some court battles lost and that answer is now firmly a "no", making me glad I ignored the installer's advice.
How is tax prep software supposed to handle a situation like that? Some of the for pay options include "audit protection", but I don't know how far that goes. I guess you can attempt to pass all liability on to the customer, but even that seems a bit risky.
And definitely the IRS has its own jargon that doesn't always make sense to the layperson. Why, for example, is a form that you fill out once per tax year called a "schedule"? It doesn't organize anything by date or time!
Some countries have residents' taxes "filed" automatically, you get a letter once a year saying what your withholding is and only need to do anything if you don't like the totals. Majority of citizens are fully automated.
It's almost as if Republicans weren't actually pushing for a smaller, cheaper, government.
Yes but there are plenty of companies or people that may want to know how the code works and would be motivated enough to read through the code to understand it and having it there in the public makes that possible.
"Direct File interprets the United States' Internal Revenue Code (26 USC) as plain language questions, the answers to which should be known to taxpayers without need of external instructions or publications. Taxpayers' answers are then translated into standard tax forms and transmitted to the IRS's Modernized e-File (MeF) API, which is available for authorized public use."
So in theory it's useful now, but as you say it could easily change.