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"Free" filing should be free as in freedom
Quoting: "Free" filing should be free as in freedom —
Governments, and/or the companies that they partner with, are responsible for providing free as in freedom software for necessary operations, and tax filing is no exception. For many years now, a large portion of taxpayers have filed their taxes electronically through proprietary programs like TurboTax. Millions of taxpayers are led to believe that they have no other option than to use nonfree software or Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS), giving up their freedom as well as their most private financial information to a third-party company, in order to file their taxes. The despair is understandable, considering the choices for tax filing that have been available for the past few decades. While the options for taxpayers have improved slightly with the IRS's implementation of the IRS Direct File program, this program unfortunately does require users to hand over their freedom when filing taxes.