This is great news; no matter how restricted it may be initially, I think having a "guaranteed-free" tax filing system will be great for most people, especially lower-income people.
The private companies have demonstrated pretty clearly that they will do everything they can to avoid people actually having free tax filing, and while ~$50-100 might not seem like a ton of money, keep in mind that at the current United States minimum wage ($7.25 as of this writing), it would take upwards of working 6-14 hours just to pay for tax filing. $100 is a lot of money when you're not a yuppie software engineer.
I suspect I did enough crazy stuff with stocks this year that it probably won't apply to me at first, but hopefully by 2025 or 2026 I can stop giving money to Intuit or Jackson Hewitt.
The private companies have demonstrated pretty clearly that they will do everything they can to avoid people actually having free tax filing, and while ~$50-100 might not seem like a ton of money, keep in mind that at the current United States minimum wage ($7.25 as of this writing), it would take upwards of working 6-14 hours just to pay for tax filing. $100 is a lot of money when you're not a yuppie software engineer.
I suspect I did enough crazy stuff with stocks this year that it probably won't apply to me at first, but hopefully by 2025 or 2026 I can stop giving money to Intuit or Jackson Hewitt.