Tax Day 2024: Taxpayer Watchdog Warns of IRS Incompetence, Problematic Direct File

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On this Tax Day, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is warning Americans about the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) incompetence in handling sensitive information, processing returns on-time, and ensuring maximum refunds through its controversial pilot Direct File program.

Direct File (the IRS’s new program) has struggled to garner users after a delayed rollout despite boasting from far-left politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Direct File would make the IRS the taxpayers’ preparer, filer, and auditor, which is a clear conflict of interest.

“We don’t have an assurance that the IRS is working in your best interest. The IRS’ job is to generate revenue, so you don’t have that necessary adversarial relationship that you would otherwise have with a tax preparer to make sure you get back every dollar back that you are owed,” TPA Executive Director Patrick Hedger said in an interview on Fox 5 DC.

“It’s really concerning because the Government Accountability Office has routinely found that the IRS – at its call centers and its in-person centers – has been giving out incorrect advice. As a taxpayer advocate, I’d like to see the IRS focus on its core mission – I’d like to see it walk before it starts to chew gum, and try to become a software company.”

Watch the full interview with Fox 5 DC’s Jim Lokay and Patrick Hedger here.

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Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a rapid response non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis, and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.