The point is that the bulk of the cost is already duplicated. When was the last time Turbotax's UI had a major revamp? The conservative narrative is, "Intuit

The point is that the bulk of the cost is already duplicated. When was the last time Turbotax's UI had a major revamp? The conservative narrative is, "Intuit and H&R do this so IRS doesn't have to. Isn't it nice that you don't have to pay more for your tax prep software because the private sector is so efficient?" No, we pay Intuit (or H&R or an actual accountant), and the federal government also spends money so the IRS can develop essentially the same functional code to check tax returns that the third party is preparing according to the same rules. In 2006 during the primaries, one of Obama's operatives floated $2 Bn as the cost of tax prep. Not all of that would be avoided by an IRS "free" e-filing app, but even if e-filing apps only represent 25%, it wouldn't take that long at $500 million per year to pay for the development of an app and refactoring IRS's existing code to be used in the app, even if it turns into a horribly inefficient project. How many billions can IRS spend on a turbotax killer without producing a turbotax killer?