The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that it will begin a pilot program during the 2024 tax season to start preparing and filing Americans’ taxes in-house, relieving them of the need to use an accountant or tax preparation software such as TurboTax.
We have heard considerable discussion about artificial intelligence and its use in our society. I applaud the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Upturn and the two dozen partner organizations that are calling on the Biden administration to take concrete steps to address the systemic racial harms of these technologies. Given that several Democratic members of Congress are already concerned about the IRS widening the racial wealth gap, it’s fair to ask if the agency’s new Direct File program will exacerbate this serious concern.
Just one day before the IRS announced its pilot program, its commissioner, Daniel Werfel, acknowledged racial disparities in the agency’s audit process. In a letter to members of the U.S. Senate, he stated that “while there is a need for further research, our initial findings support the conclusion that Black taxpayers may be audited at higher rates than would be expected given their share of the population.”
