Changes were made this week to the Internal Revenue Service’s Free File Agreement, which keeps TurboTax maker Intuit and other companies that the IRS has partnered with, from obfuscating their free software from the eyes of online search engines like Google. Now, free tax software will appear in search browsers with a universal naming scheme.
Intuit, Drake Enterprises, H&R Block, and several other companies partnered with the IRS to form the Free File Alliance. Two of the primary goals of the FFA are providing easy access to free tax filing options and raising the percentage of electronically filed tax returns. Before the recent change, associated companies could hide their free software under cryptic wording or hard to find pages. ProPublica reported back in April that Intuit and H&R Block had inserted code into pages relevant to TurboTax Free File that prevented them from appearing on search engines. Now, all applications will appear with a standardized label. For instance, Turbotax would appear as “IRS Free File program delivered by TurboTax,” and so on.
In addition to the clarity changes, the IRS is now able to compete with other industry giants. Likely this is in response to the actions of Intuit and H&R Block. The previous version had the government stay away from the market under the notion that the allied companies would provide the best service they could to any American looking to file their taxes online. Intuit and H&R Block’s actions have lost them the IRS’s trust. The Free File Alliance’s goal is to provide less fortunate people with a viable method of doing their taxes online, purposefully hiding the free software from search engines comes across as a predatory tactic to squeeze money out of those who cannot afford it.
The IRS’s website explains that before the Free File Alliance formed, free tax software was hard to find, though it did exist. These programs, being owned by private sector organizations, could have their rules changed between tax-cycles or just discontinued entirely. The FFA was formed to streamline the process, now IRS.gov hosts a list of every free program on a single page.
With the IRS now free to make its own tax filing software, it’s unclear if the list will remain as it is. The IRS will be in direct competition with the other companies in the alliance, which may also provoke some to leave as it’s unclear what benefits they are receiving for remaining.
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Source: Propublica
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