Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) its April 2024 Porker of the Month for pushing for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to prepare and collect everyone’s taxes.

An IRS tax preparation system is duplicative, costly, and dangerous. The agency’s Direct File system is already failing since only 50,000 taxpayers have used it out of the 19 million who are eligible. By comparison, 70 million taxpayers have gotten their taxes done by private sector companies since the Free File program was launched with the IRS in 2003. Sen. Warren has pushed for years to set up an IRS tax preparation system and the agency launched its Direct File system without any statutory authority. The IRS has not only wasted money setting up its tax preparation system but also violated privacy when 700,000 Americans had their Social Security numbers and other information exposed in 2016.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Sen. Warren’s push for the duplicative and wasteful Direct File program shows her complete disregard for protecting taxpayer dollars and information. Only taxpayers know their personal financial situation, but the Direct File program will allow the IRS to become the preparer, biller, and enforcer of everyone’s taxes. Filing taxes is already difficult and stressful enough for taxpayers. Sen. Warren should be ashamed of her proposal that will waste money and harm taxpayers across America. For her efforts to expand the size and scope of the IRS’s power and take away personal control, Sen. Warren was an easy choice for this month’s Porker.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. For more than two decades, Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers and government officials who have shown a blatant disregard for the taxpayers.

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