Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) released the following statement after the IRS announced plans to make their unauthorized Direct File program permanent:

“Congress did not authorize the IRS to create a Direct File program because the American people neither want nor asked for it. Only at the IRS would authorization for a study, using cherrypicked data from a liberal group, get twisted into a pilot program for 140,000 taxpayers, which has now turned into a bizarre justification for creating a permanent nationwide government tax program. The IRS cannot even justify its own cost estimates for the program, according to a Treasury Inspector General report last year, which found that the agency had no documentation to support the underlying data, analysis, or assumptions about the cost to taxpayers. The IRS has proven itself time and again to be a poor steward of taxpayer information. This latest attempt to circumvent Congress and establish a new tax program only serves to further undermine the fraying trust between the agency and the public. It is clear that making this program permanent and appointing the IRS as tax preparer, filer, and auditor, instead of delivering for taxpayers, has been Democrats’ plan all along.”