ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida’s chief financial officer has co-signed a letter with financial officers from 18 states urging U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel to “shut down” the IRS Direct File online tax preparation pilot program.
“I just hate wasting tax payer dollars period,” state CFO Jimmy Patronis told News 6. “This is a multi-billion-dollar solution, looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.”
The test program, officially launched on March 12, is designed to handle “simple tax situations” and has been operating without any reported issues to date.
Werfel told News 6 the system is secure and that his office was “getting a lot of positive feedback.”
“We have a lot of states that are monitoring, interested if Direct File goes forward, in working with us next year,” Werfel said.
The system went through a light test run with 1,500 taxpayers before launching the 12-state pilot program last month.
According to the IRS, 2.4 million Florida taxpayers are “potentially eligible” to use Direct File with a total of 18 million taxpayers in the designated states that include Florida, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
According to IRS spokesperson Alejandra Castro, Direct File “does not replace existing filing options like tax professionals, IRS Free File, free return preparation sites, commercial software or authorized e-file providers.”
Still, Patronis along with GOP treasurers, comptrollers and auditors in 18 states view the pilot program as an unnecessary expense.
In the letter to Yellen and Werfel, they write in part, “The IRS originally estimated that Direct File would only cost taxpayers $2.5 billion over ten years, but the TIGTA report could not substantiate those estimates.”
The letter cites findings from Govini (a commercial data company) that found “actual costs would be closer to those of Healthcare.gov, which has cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.”
“It just gives me a lot of concern that there is more overreach by big government,” Patronis told News 6. “Wasting tax payer dollars for services nobody wants.”
An independent federal survey found that only 28% of taxpayers surveyed were “very interested” in using the Direct File service.
When told the service does not include a state income tax option, 60% said they would use their current tax software.
No decision has been made to continue the Direct File service.
Werfel told News 6 the results have been encouraging but that “we want to get through April 15″ before the IRS decides if it will continue Direct File next year.
For more information, go to directfile.IRS.gov.
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