Thanks so much for keeping this going, and for the late 18F for open-sourcing these implementations... I hope there's a way we can institutionalize your efforts.
As a side note, when the documentation page is viewed in a dark mode browser, I see black text on black background (https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/).
i'm not from the US, but i did work on forms related to government workflows.
it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store facts about themselves and let some software figure out which of those facts are needed for filling out any form, which needs the usual personal facts.
then one can review the required facts and decide which ones are they willing to share.
in fact governments could even standardize the kind of info they are dealing with usually and when a citizen wants the government to do something, instead of filling out forms, they could provide their own, self-hosted fact db, run the govt's query and provide the results (after review)
I think the post office could have been this, but the political will wasn't there. Separation of banking from taxation and the postal system from both of those for separation of concerns for compartmentalization was probably at the forefront of the minds of the founders, since Washington himself had run a spy network and been personally hunted by soldiers and mercenaries on their own turf during the revolution, so I can't say these aren't legitimate concerns, but they haven't exactly aged well. At the time of the revolution and directly after the union, there was no federal income tax anyway.
Hypothetically, you could have sent 0.01 to a friend and use the memo field as a poor man's postcard with free postage, provided in-system transactions were free, which they arguably ought to be, but likely never were or would be in actuality.
Taxes work on "self assessment" basis meaning you, the taxpayer have the burden to declare all facts relevant to assessment of your tax and you pay the tax.
Then, sometimes your case is picked for audit and then they check if what you declared is correct as per applicable laws or not.
See, here is a small mom and pop shop... who owns that? Is the premises on rent? How much ? Is the rent deed valid and proper? Maybe you are paying less rent than declaring? Are you actually employing people you say you are? Are you paying them exactly you say you are paying?
How would you ensure that fact db is not having funny data ?
Say i am saying i am paying 100 bucks a week for fuel but fact is, my shop is next door to my home and i am just pocketing this cash daily. If i keep putting this 100 bucks weekly expense in this factdb, how will govt know.that i am not lying?
It’s my understanding that they have expected ranges certain things should be within that’s considered normal and anything outside of that puts a higher risk of an audit or simple manual review/adjustment.
You're moving the goalposts; the purpose would be reducing toil (and possibly other costs) for the people who are currently tasked with filling out these types of forms.
There's nothing in the comment you're responding to that suggests that it's instead meant to be a solution to the problem of the government (or any other org) being unable to trust the inputs to its systems or ameliorate the costs of bad actors at all.
A person entering lies in their personal fact database tomorrow can submit the same lies on their personal income tax return today.
That is really awesome, which I could give more upvotes. I hope you can keep it running and get some support. (sry i've made it a life mission to avoid javascript when possible)
It really is embarrassing how ineffective and useless the US gov has become.
(In the latest version of the bill being negotiated in Congress, the language to sunset Direct File has been removed, but this of course could change due to the fluidity of the situation; regardless, we are all better off having learned from this and having access to the source code)
the code they released was everything that is necessary to run Direct File in development, but they removed code relating to MeF (the IRS's online submission API) and SADI (the IRS's auth system which is integrated with ID.me). most of the code is the backend, Fact Graph (which is a very complex rules engine), the client app (both the form and the screener when you go to directfile.irs.gov), and the state tax API
For what it is worth, the Big Beautiful Bill contains this gem...
As soon as practicable, and not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program has been terminated.
(This is the text of the bill on the website as of the time I posted this, it can change or be wrong now.
It's gotten outright infuriating that people keep blaming government for bad initiatives that are solely the fault of Republicans.
Getting real tired of people blaming "both sides" for everything bad the government does as if it's some sort of morally or intellectually superior viewpoint. It's a thought-ending cliche.
Sure, both sides are drone-striking warmongers. Both sides are basically owned by corporations.
But only one side is welcoming literal flag-waving Nazis into their midst and working to deport legal citizens and immigrants. Only one side is fighting to take food away from children in schools. Only one side is trying to take healthcare away from senior citizens. Only one side is trying to create a Christian white ethno-state.
People try to accuse the left of trying to stifle freedom-of-speech, yet Trump is the one spreading rhetoric about wanting to jail journalists for daring to speak up against him.
As a side note, when the documentation page is viewed in a dark mode browser, I see black text on black background (https://docs.openfile.tax/en/latest/).
it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store facts about themselves and let some software figure out which of those facts are needed for filling out any form, which needs the usual personal facts.
then one can review the required facts and decide which ones are they willing to share.
in fact governments could even standardize the kind of info they are dealing with usually and when a citizen wants the government to do something, instead of filling out forms, they could provide their own, self-hosted fact db, run the govt's query and provide the results (after review)
Explain. Id like to.know
> it bugged me for a long time why a person can't store facts about themselves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...
Hypothetically, you could have sent 0.01 to a friend and use the memo field as a poor man's postcard with free postage, provided in-system transactions were free, which they arguably ought to be, but likely never were or would be in actuality.
Then, sometimes your case is picked for audit and then they check if what you declared is correct as per applicable laws or not.
See, here is a small mom and pop shop... who owns that? Is the premises on rent? How much ? Is the rent deed valid and proper? Maybe you are paying less rent than declaring? Are you actually employing people you say you are? Are you paying them exactly you say you are paying?
How would you ensure that fact db is not having funny data ?
Say i am saying i am paying 100 bucks a week for fuel but fact is, my shop is next door to my home and i am just pocketing this cash daily. If i keep putting this 100 bucks weekly expense in this factdb, how will govt know.that i am not lying?
As for fraud, the same way they check for lies now, cross reference reports and then audit.
There's nothing in the comment you're responding to that suggests that it's instead meant to be a solution to the problem of the government (or any other org) being unable to trust the inputs to its systems or ameliorate the costs of bad actors at all.
A person entering lies in their personal fact database tomorrow can submit the same lies on their personal income tax return today.
It really is embarrassing how ineffective and useless the US gov has become.
https://chrisgiven.com/2025/06/saying-goodbye/
https://chrisgiven.com/2025/05/direct-file-on-github/
https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
(In the latest version of the bill being negotiated in Congress, the language to sunset Direct File has been removed, but this of course could change due to the fluidity of the situation; regardless, we are all better off having learned from this and having access to the source code)
As soon as practicable, and not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program has been terminated.
(This is the text of the bill on the website as of the time I posted this, it can change or be wrong now.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/te...)
FTFY
Everything happening since the last election is 100% because republicans have control of all branches of government.
Getting real tired of people blaming "both sides" for everything bad the government does as if it's some sort of morally or intellectually superior viewpoint. It's a thought-ending cliche.
Sure, both sides are drone-striking warmongers. Both sides are basically owned by corporations.
But only one side is welcoming literal flag-waving Nazis into their midst and working to deport legal citizens and immigrants. Only one side is fighting to take food away from children in schools. Only one side is trying to take healthcare away from senior citizens. Only one side is trying to create a Christian white ethno-state.
People try to accuse the left of trying to stifle freedom-of-speech, yet Trump is the one spreading rhetoric about wanting to jail journalists for daring to speak up against him.