Remarks by Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo at the Code for America Conference

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you to Code for America for inviting me to speak at today’s conference about IRS Direct File, our new option for Americans to file their taxes for free. 

Direct File is just one of many ways the IRS is working to save taxpayers time and money given the resources we now have due to the Inflation Reduction Act. We’re using those resources to do things like the successful Pilot Program that we just had for Direct File, where we’ve seen taxpayers all over the country ask the IRS to provide services like this, and I’m happy to be here today to announce that the Treasury Department and IRS are planning to make sure that the Direct File is here to stay. 

We’re excited to extend an open invitation to all 50 states to join Direct File starting next filing season. Our goal over the next few years is to make sure that Direct File is an available option for all working- and middle-class taxpayers who want to use it. 

I want to recap how we arrived at this announcement. In just nine months, the IRS built a first-class technology product, with the look and feel of commercial software, using resources that were given to us by Congress, but resources the President fought for in the Inflation Reduction Act, that now allow the IRS working with U.S. Digital Service to follow best practices, starting small and extensively testing a product in phases. This approach paid off. There were no widespread outages, and the system was able to handle tens of thousands of returns a day in the last days of Filing Season. 

This all speaks to the importance of the resources that the IRS has gotten through the Inflation Reduction Act, but also the ability of the IRS to work closely with partners like Code for America, who played an important role in making sure that states who wanted to sign up and work with the IRS to make sure that Direct File was available in their state were able to do so. 

We know that partnerships with Code for America and organizations like yours are critical to making sure that the government can provide world-class services like Direct File to Americans, and as the IRS continues its efforts using Inflation Reduction Act money to make it easier for taxpayers to take advantage of the benefits that they are owed, be it through the Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit and to be able to file their taxes as cheaply and as easily as possible. We look forward to continuing the partnership with Code for America. 

Thank you for allowing me to speak before the beginning of this panel. But I want to just say again that I’m grateful for the hard-working men and women of the IRS and the U.S. Digital Service but also for the work for that Code for America and organizations throughout the country who have done to make sure that we can provide remarkable service and products to the American people. Thank you for having me.

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