Worth noting that the GOP-led House is trying to silently kill this with haste (along with funding for IRS enforcement) by burying defunding language in H.R. 2811 (a.k.a. the House's proposal to raise the debt ceiling) § 251 under a backhanded title named "Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection"[1]:
> The unobligated balances of amounts appropriated or otherwise made available for activities of the Internal Revenue Service by paragraphs (1)(A)(ii), (1)(A)(iii), (1)(B), (2), (3), (4), and (5) of section 10301 of Public Law 117–169 (commonly known as the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022”) as of the date of the enactment of this Act are rescinded.
The $15 million budget mentioned in the article was appropriated[2] by § 10301 p. (1)(B) of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and will expire at the end of this fiscal year:
> TASK FORCE TO DESIGN AN IRS-RUN FREE "DIRECT EFILE" TAX RETURN SYSTEM.—For necessary expenses of the Internal Revenue Service to deliver to Congress, within nine months following the date of the enactment of this Act, a report on (I) the cost (including options for differential coverage based on taxpayer adjusted gross income and return complexity) of developing and running a free direct efile tax return system, including costs to build and administer each release, with a focus on multi-lingual and mobile-friendly features and safeguards for taxpayer data; (II) taxpayer opinions, expectations, and level of trust, based on surveys, for such a free direct efile system; and (III) the opinions of an independent third-party on the overall feasibility, approach, schedule, cost, organizational design, and Internal Revenue Service capacity to deliver such a direct efile tax return system, $15,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2023: Provided, That these amounts shall be in addition to amounts otherwise available for such purposes.
What the GOP really wants to quietly snuff is the IRS's enforcement budget...something about IRS examinations and collections having very real capacity to deliver positive revenue increases for the Treasury[3], and higher-income taxpayers facing the largest increase in audit rates[4].
Alas, games will be played[5].
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2811...
[2] https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ169/PLAW-117publ169.p...
[3] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56467