There isn’t much to study - it didn’t succeed or fail on the merits - someone didn’t like it because he didn’t create it so it got axed.
There isn’t much to study - it didn’t succeed or fail on the merits - someone didn’t like it because he didn’t create it so it got axed.
I disagree wholeheartedly that there isn’t much to study. Direct File was actually a resounding success, especially when you consider how much difficulty governments tend to have shipping good software products. There is a lot of good information in here that government entities can learn from.
Including how and why it died. That is an important lesson for the entire governmental enterprise, including all decision-makers, to learn: that government CAN deliver something good and one single person should not be in totalitarian control
> That is an important lesson for the entire governmental enterprise, including all decision-makers, to learn: that government CAN deliver something good and one single person should not be in totalitarian control
This is only a major epiphany to proponents of a US-based ideological current, and mostly the result of anti-communist cold war propaganda. The rest of the world is well aware that state projects can and do succeed more than they fail.
I think it speaks to doing things "the right way". Direct file could have been mandated by Congress, but it wasn't. Instead it only directed the IRS to do a "study" as a "voluntary agency initiative". That left full control of whether it should be done in the hands of the IRS and the executive branch.
> Direct file could have been mandated by Congress, but it wasn't.
Something being mandated by Congress is no protection at times:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter...
(Or the Constitution for that matter it seems.)
More concretely and timely for this discussion - the beneficial ownership registry was passed in the 2021 NDAA by congress and signed by Biden. So there's a law on the books that FinCEN needs to collect the ownership data for all US companies to prevent money laundering.
This week, Bessent decided that the signature policy of the Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan effort to stymie cartels and foreign oligarchs, would not only be stopped, but they instructed FinCEN to delete all the records they've already collected.
Easily the most lawless gang of corrupt bureaucrats that have ever held office in the US.
https://thehill.com/business/6025347-treasury-repeals-benefi...
Not a funding issue per se, but Congress also passed a law requiring that the "Epstein files" be released by December 2025. Yet here we are, ~9 months later, and the Republican administration is still violating the law's deadline and its requirements not to black out the names of people who aren't trafficking-victims.
Meanwhile, Republican legislators are looking at the people responsible and *checks notes* ... rewarding them with powerful government jobs. [0]
[0] https://www.citizen.org/article/todd-blanche-the-epstein-fil...
Yeah that would have protected it /s
It had talented software engineers involved including with the marketplace. It succumbed to political forces
It didnt happen because Intuit lobbied against it like their business model was in existential crisis. The canary is that inappropriate power imbalances will ruin even the most hard one feats of human collaboration and effort. Its like learning about why jaywalking became a crime, or why recycling is a consumer’s respobsibility. Edit: So I'm about as original as a model can be as I went to go fact check myself and I basically cliff noted an AI summary for yall pre-gen.
I doubt this is the reason. In this particular case, it's more likely that a company such as Turbotax paid a sufficient sum of money to the President or one of his family members in exchange for this consideration.
Then there is that to study
Congress authorized a study, not a full blown system, or even a working prototype. No taxpayers should have ever been allowed to use it to file a tax return.
Despite Congress appropriating only $15M to do the study, the program managed to blow through at least $41M, likely more.[1] This included advertising costs in some states to encourage taxpayers to use the system.
This would be like your boss asking you to send him an email about the pros and cons of adding a feature, and you going and implementing the feature, pushing it to production, and then asking customers for feedback on it.
Whether or not the feature was a success is 100% irrelevant. That’s not how things should be done. We are a nation of laws, and even if the program was a smashing success, there needs to be accountability.
1. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/Report-Replacemen...
> We are a nation of laws
Yeah sorry but to be out here defending the actions of this administration while trotting out that phrase, you either have no self awareness or are a craven liar. Nation of laws SMH…
> We are a nation of laws
Have you considered doing stand-up comedy?
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let's say a non-profit hosts it somewhere can people use it to file their taxes for free?