From the article: >"The Internal Revenue Service will spend $15 million studying a free, government-backed tax filing system under a provision in the sweeping

From the article: >"The Internal Revenue Service will spend $15 million studying a free, government-backed tax filing system under a provision in the sweeping climate and health-care law Congress passed this summer." Why does "studying a free filing system" require $15 million? >"Now lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who pushed for the IRS free-file study, say they hope the funding will encourage the agency to more vigorously pursue its own platform." This is the congress who had been cutting the IRS funding forever[1]. There's no way that the IRS can pursue its own platform without Congress loosening the purse strings. >"Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the chamber’s Finance Committee, asked the IRS to conduct a taxpayer opinion survey on an e-file system and consult a vendor to begin to build a government-backed platform." I think this answers my above question of why "studying a free filing system" requires $15 million. I'm guessing the "vendor" here is McKinsey or one of the other big 4 consulting firms. They will hoover most of the $15 million with the results of the study being "if you pay us, McKinsey, a hundred million dollars we can definitely build this for you." [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted