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Leading tax prep companies Intuit and H&R Block poured more than $7 million into federal lobbying in 2025 – the same year the IRS’s free Direct File program was shuttered.
Those two companies have spent a combined $103 million on federal lobbying since 2003 on a range of issues that include free filing – specifically, the government-run Direct File program established under former President Joe Biden that allowed eligible taxpayers to file federal returns online at no cost.
The program had been projected to save taxpayers up to $23 billion in filing fees over the next decade, but President Donald Trump’s White House formally suspended it in November 2025.
In its place, officials directed taxpayers toward the long-standing Free File program, a 2003 partnership between the IRS and a coalition of private companies offering free tax prep services to a larger subset of taxpayers. Under terms of the partnership, the IRS pledged that it would not develop a competing product.
“There is a huge business incentive to keep the government out of the business of making your taxes easy,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told OpenSecrets.
The relationship soured in 2019 amid two key developments: an addendum lifted the IRS’s product-development restriction after investigative reporting revealed that companies had hidden free options from search engines to steer users toward paid products. Several members of Congress, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), cited OpenSecrets and ProPublica reporting in 2022 in calling for probes into Intuit’s use of revolving-door lobbyists.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allotted $15 million for the IRS to study and pilot its own direct filing service, which ultimately became Direct File.
Since OpenSecrets’ most recent analysis of the industry in mid-2023, the two giants have spent an additional $17.4 million on federal lobbying. And for the first time, the Free File Alliance, now known as Free File Inc., entered the fray during a chaotic 2025 for the IRS, though at a far lower spending level than either of the two heavyweights. Neither Intuit nor H&R Block currently participates in Free File, having both withdrawn in recent years.
Intuit, maker of TurboTax, reported a record $3.9 million in federal lobbying expenditures in 2025 and has spent $53.8 million since 2004, the year after the Free File group was formed. H&R Block spent nearly $3.2 million in lobbying in 2025 for the second straight year and has spent $49.7 million since 2004.
Because domestic lobbyists are not required to itemize spending by issue, the totals encompass dozens of tax and tech issues beyond free-file matters.
Still, their $7.1 million spent on lobbying in 2025 was their highest combined annual total on record. And the quarterly disclosures they filed in 2025 contain numerous references to either Direct File or the statute that created it. That was also the year the program expanded from a 12-state pilot to 25 states, was targeted by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and was ultimately shut down.
“The lobbying efforts of the for-profit tax prep industry are happening in this larger political context, where there is consistently a strong incentive on the right to attack, to defund, to go after the IRS as an institution,” Williamson said. “It made life easier for the tax prep industry, because no one was going to stand up for the IRS. No one was going to say, ‘Oh, you know, the IRS could do a really good job at this.’”
‘Revolving door’ influence
Both companies relied heavily on “revolving door” lobbyists, people who previously worked in government before moving into the lobbying industry.
Nearly 70% of Intuit’s 84 lobbyists in 2025 were revolvers, many with deep experience on Congress’ tax-writing panels (the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees). Its roster included former Finance general counsel and deputy staff director Mac Campbell, former Ways and Means majority tax counsel David Olander and Jonathan Kott, a former top aide to then-Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
At H&R Block, almost three-fourths of its 34 lobbyists were revolvers. Many brought experience in budgeting, banking or congressional leadership offices, including former Office of Management and Budget top advisor Jonathan Slemrod and Dwight Fettig, former staff director of the Senate Banking Committee.
A broader ecosystem
Other organizations also ramped up their efforts.
The American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights – a trade association whose members include Intuit and H&R Block along with Jackson Hewitt, TaxSlayer and Liberty Tax Services – spent $360,000 on federal lobbying in 2025. Its three highest-spending years have all come since 2023. It has called Direct File “failed” and a “distraction to the IRS” and characterized its suspension as being “in the best interest of American taxpayers and the IRS.”
A newer entrant, the Alliance for IRS Accountability, formed in 2025. Led by Charles Flint, a former Breitbart News executive and chief of staff to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the group spent $290,000 lobbying on five specific tax-related issues. Its disclosures include three references to Direct File, which Flint blasted on social media as a “major IRS power grab.”
And despite a long-standing public stance against political maneuvering, the Free File organization itself also began lobbying.
The group spent $76,000 last year and hired a team that includes a pair of revolvers: Stephen Ryan, founder of the Free File Alliance and a former general counsel to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Paul Cambon, a veteran of the House Appropriations Committee. Half of the group’s disclosure forms include references to free-filing issues.
Free File’s entrance into the lobbying sphere marks a stark reversal: Executive Director Tim Hugo told the Associated Press in 2023 that his organization “does not lobby, does not hire lobbyists, has not hired lobbyists in the past and has never had a PAC.”
In an email to OpenSecrets, Hugo attributed the change in part to turbulence at the IRS, which as Trump’s second term began churned through seven acting or confirmed commissioners in the first eight months of 2025 and laid off or fired about a quarter of its workforce. Because the partnership requires the agency to promote Free File, the organization felt compelled to step in, he said.
“After the ending of Direct File and the many commissioner turnovers in 2025, Free File wanted to ensure that the program was properly promoted and that taxpayers were aware of this free program,” Hugo said, noting that the organization continues to operate without a political action committee.
Shifting business models
While Intuit lobbied on Direct File, its own financial disclosures show a shift in its consumer base. TurboTax units declined by 2% in 2025, which the company attributed to “yielding share” of lower-revenue taxpayers. Yet its Consumer Group revenue grew 10% to $4.9 billion, driven by gains among higher-income filers.
H&R Block reported a similar trend. Its $3.8 billion in total revenue, a 4.2% increase, was driven largely by a higher average charge per client, reflecting a shift toward more profitable, professional-assisted services.
“The failure of government to provide free public tax preparation created a market of people who are nervous about doing their own taxes – reasonably. The tax code is complicated,” Williamson said. “And the for-profit companies stepped into that market. … The for-profit tax preparers found ways to make it very lucrative for themselves.”
Direct File’s legacy: ‘Not something you can erase’
The fight may not be over just yet.
In late February, Warren joined scores of lawmakers in introducing the Direct File Act, which would permanently reverse the administration’s shutdown of the program and bar the IRS from entering agreements that restrict its ability to provide a free tax preparation.
“Direct File proves that we could make government better in practice,” Williamson said. “It was relatively easy to shut down Direct File, logistically. But you can’t make it not have existed. The example that Direct File provided is not something that you can erase.”
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