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Comment by kyrra | Hacker News Reader

But there was already a free way you could file taxes with Turbotax, FreeTaxUSA, and H&RBlock if you had a simple return. Direct File was a government built alternative to that.

Eg: https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/free-editi...

If there was also a free flow available, why would the government need to build an alternative?

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And TurboTax got in a bunch of trouble because of the amount of dark patterns they were using to guide you away from the free filing.

[0]: https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/01/ftc-finds-t...

Because those other companies actively violated agreements they made with the government in the 2000 to offer those services for free. They regularly tricked people into paying and lost a class action lawsuit over it.

It's also weird that we have to file taxes at all. Other developed countries have their revenue agencies automatically calculate the taxes for you and send a return. The only reason we don't is because of Intuit and H&R Block lobbying like crazy to prevent this. It's rent seeking at it's worse

Direct File was only built in the first place because Turbo Tax and H&R Block dropped out of agreements with the IRS to keep free tax filing options free and unencumbered of upsells and dark patterns.

The number of people their "free" products actually serve dropped drastically a couple years ago. They will upsell or dark pattern you to paying for it as best and as deeply as they can.

This was an interesting read on the subject: https://chrisgiven.com/2025/07/the-things-that-cannot-be-cha...

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