The leaders of President-elect Donald Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" have discussed trying to create a mobile app for Americans to file their taxes free with the Internal Revenue Service, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Trump last week tapped billionaire Elon Musk and former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the "DOGE" panel and gave them two principal mandates: cut government spending and reduce federal regulations. The leaders of the group have also discussed overhauling the tax system to let Americans file their taxes through a mobile app, viewing it as an opportunity to improve how millions of taxpayers interact with the federal government, the people said. This idea is not viewed as central to the commission's work but could still emerge as a goal, although what form its recommendations take still remains unclear.
These conversations, which people close to the commission described as highly preliminary, reflect the extent of the brainstorming occurring among the Silicon Valley elites suddenly handed political power about how to transform the federal government. Musk and Ramaswamy have championed their effort as a historic opportunity to unleash American business innovation by reducing regulation and government waste, but critics of both parties have said the effort often reveals an ignorance about work already done to try to solve problems in government.
For instance, Democrats have long sought to reduce the power of private tax filing companies, such as Intuit, by creating a government tool to allow Americans to file taxes. The Inflation Reduction Act, one of President Joe Biden's signature economic policy measures, created the first-ever free file portal for Americans to fill out their taxes. This year, the first one the system was up and running, more than 100,000 taxpayers used the pilot program according to the Treasury Department. Republicans generally opposed that effort as giving more power to the IRS, though.
Code for America, a tech nonprofit that assists the government, worked with the IRS to enable Americans to file their federal and state taxes through the free file database in about half of the states. Amanda Renteria, Code for America's CEO, said the Biden administration undertook a smart and careful process to make sure the system was effective for its users, working out the kinks on a small scale. But she also expressed confidence that those successes could now be built upon to provide free online tax filing for all Americans.
Tax experts have long said such a system could provide particularly large benefits to low-income Americans, who often do not claim thousands of dollars in annual benefits because they cannot afford a tax preparer who would help them file.
