The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which President-elect Trump has directed from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is reportedly considering developing a mobile app to make it easier for taxpayers to file their returns for free. are.
DOGE may develop an app that taxpayers can use to file their taxes more seamlessly, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing two people familiar with conversations with DOGE leaders on the matter. However, officials said the conversation was very preliminary.
The paper's report notes that there are several challenges to developing a tax filing app, including the potential inability to access relevant expense documentation and the size and complexity of tax laws.
DOGE's review of ways to make it easier for Americans to pay their taxes each year is a broader push to scrutinize federal programs for potential cost savings and drive efficiencies by streamlining programs and eliminating redundancies. This is being carried out as part of what is expected to be the case.
Both Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy want to simplify the tax code. “Crazy idea: let's simplify the tax code,” Musk wrote in an X post on Tuesday, in response to a post citing the costs Americans incur in the process of filing their taxes each year.
The official DOGE account on social media platform X, owned by Musk, expressed similar sentiments in a post on Saturday.
“In 1955, there were fewer than 1.5 million words in the U.S. tax code. Today, there are more than 16 million words. Because of this complexity, Americans spend more time each year preparing and filing their taxes. 6.5 billion hours. This needs to be simplified,” DOGE wrote.
FOX Business has reached out to DOGE for comment.
Americans can now file their taxes online for free through the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Free File program, which is a web-based program rather than a mobile app.
The Free File program includes a guided tax software program for taxpayers with annual gross income of $79,000 or less and a fillable form similar to a paper 1040 form that provides a free option for taxpayers with income above that threshold. There is a form.
Shares of prominent companies that provide accounting and tax services to consumers fell on Tuesday after reports that DOGE may be working on a mobile app for tax filing.
H&R Block stock fell 8.2%. Shares of Intuit, TurboTax's parent company, fell 5.1%.
