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...