The flagship climate change and health care bill passed by Democrats and soon to be signed by President Joe Biden will bring U.S. taxpayers one step closer to a government-operated electronic free-file tax return system.

It’s something lawmakers and advocates have been seeking for years. For many Americans, it’s frustrating that beyond having to pay sometimes hefty tax bills, they also have to shell out additional money for tax preparation programs or preparers because of an increasingly complex U.S. tax system.

“It’s definitely something we should do, and when the IRS is adequately resourced, it’s something that will happen,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at a June Senate Finance Committee hearing.

And now that the IRS is set to receive nearly $80 billion through the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” the agency has the means to develop new systems to help Americans pay their taxes. The legislation passed Congress on Friday.

Several hurdles stand in the way. Even in a best-case scenario, it will likely take years to get a new, free system up and running. There’s also pushback from commercial tax preparation companies, which question whether Americans want the IRS to prepare their taxes.

Perhaps this biggest hurdle is an agreement between the IRS and some commercial tax preparation companies, known as the Free File Alliance, which prevents the federal agency from creating its own free tax return filing system. In short, the IRS agreed not create its own filing system if companies would instead provide free services to taxpayers making $73,000 or less.

This program, though, has been marred with controversy, with commercial firms misrepresenting their services and low taxpayer participation rates.

The Government Accountability Office in April reported that while 70% of taxpayers were eligible for services through the Free File Alliance, only 3% of taxpayers actually use the service. The watchdog recommended the IRS find new free filing options before the Alliance expires in October 2023.

With the funding in the bill, the IRS has an opportunity to create a new system.

Included is a provision that allots $15 million to the IRS to make plans for a free direct e-file tax return system. Those plans would have to be developed within nine months and would include cost estimates for creating and administering a system. They would also require public input.

There are also legislative attempts to move this effort along.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in July resubmitted a bill called the Tax Filing Simplification Act that would require the IRS to create its own free online tax filing service and move away from its partnership with private online tax preparation companies.

“I’ve been pushing for a free tax filing system for years, and now the IRS is on the verge of having significant funding to modernize its IT systems, which means it’s time to develop simplified filing tools laid out in my Tax Filing Simplification Act,” Warren told The Associated Press.

“Americans spend too much time and money to file their taxes, and the IRS should adopt these proposals to help millions of Americans file taxes and claim refunds.”

At her Finance Committee appearance, Yellen called for a new system.

“There’s no reason in the world that a modern economy shouldn’t have a system that makes it easy for such a large group of taxpayers to file their returns,” she said.

Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said “if the IRS moves forward with a free product, it could save lower-income families the money they used to give to H&R Block or TurboTax.”

“Tax prep companies are notorious for tricking tax filers into paying for services they should be getting for free,” Williamson said, “so an IRS free file service would be a very welcome step that would save Americans money.”

In 2019, ProPublica wrote about Intuit’s TurboTax and H&R Block Inc.’s efforts to mislead taxpayers away from the federally supported free services for which they qualified. And in May, New York Attorney General Letitia James secured a $141 million settlement with Mountain View, California-based Intuit Inc., which had to pay restitution to some taxpayers.

Intuit withdrew from the Alliance in July 2021, stating in a blog post that the company could provide its benefits without the Free File Alliance’s limitations. H&R Block withdrew from the partnership in 2020.

“Most Americans don’t want the tax collector to also serve as the tax preparer,” said Derrick L. Plummer, a spokesman for Intuit.

“The IRS already has a core mission that it needs to focus on, and creating a new system would cost billions of taxpayer dollars and jeopardize the financial freedom of millions more,” he said. A spokesperson for H&R Block did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Ideas for what a government run free-file program might look like are already being studied.

Bruce Sacerdote, a Dartmouth economist, has examined systems in other countries in which taxpayers don’t have to enter much data on their electronic forms because the government has already done so.

“The IRS has tremendous amounts of information on wages and dividends,” he said, adding that a government-supported tax filing system “could be a wonderful thing.”

Such systems are used in Germany, Japan and other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries that collaborate to develop policies that promote economic growth.

“As a taxpayer, there could be a great benefit to pre-population,” he said. “Filing taxes is enormously time-consuming. Given all the information has on taxpayers, the IRS could they simply send you a completed return.”

NEW YORK — Early, in-person voting began Saturday in New York’s congressional party primaries, which will set the final field for a slew of competitive contests in the general election this autumn.

Voters in two parts of the state are also picking new members of Congress in special elections to replace U.S. House members who resigned.

Some of the hottest contests will be an early test of where the Democratic and Republican parties are headed in the midterm elections.

In a special election in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, Ulster County Executive Patrick Ryan, a Democrat, has campaigned on a promise to protect abortion access while Republican Marc Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, has focused on inflation, gas prices and crime.

Both want to fill the seat formerly held by Antonio Delgado, the Democrat who resigned to become New York’s lieutenant governor this summer.

In counties along the Pennsylvania border in western New York, Democrat Max Della Pia faces Republican Joseph Sempolinski in a contest to serve out the remainder of the term of former U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican who resigned this summer.

Meanwhile, in New York City the most closely watched race in the Democratic primary features a battle between two heavyweight incumbents who were forced to run against each other when a judge redrew the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts.

U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney face each other, plus newcomer Suraj Patel, a Democrat who has run for the office twice before.

And in western New York, the chairman of the state Republican Party, Nick Langworthy, is in a bruising primary fight with Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, who was once the party’s candidate for governor but has a record of making outrageous comments and telling or passing along racist jokes.

A limited number of polling places will be open for early voting through Aug. 21. There’s then a one-day pause before the full array of polling locations open for the final day of the primary on Aug. 23.

More than 140 advocacy groups formed a new coalition to stop the Biden administration’s proposed rewrite of regulations banning sex discrimination in education, saying the new LGBTQ-slant to the rules will harm kids and limit parental rights.  

The fight is over defining sex based on biology or expanding the definition to include sexual orientation and gender identity. 

The Biden administration says a new, broader definition of sex is needed to protect LGBTQ students, but opponents warn it will curtail free speech and diminish due process for students on college campuses. 

“We will block this. It’s just a matter of at which stage of the process,” Edward Bartlett, chairman of the Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, said ahead of a rally Thursday in front of the Education Department in Washington. “I formerly worked in the Department of Health and Human Services in a regulatory role. I know how the process works from the inside out. So there are many ways to stop this, and we’ll just see how it plays out.”

He organized the rally to protest the proposed new rule and mark the formation of the Title IX Network, which includes more than 140 groups joining the cause. 

The Biden administration proposed changes this summer to the regulations that implement Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in education. A public comment period on the regulation is open until Sept. 12, 2022. 

SEE ALSO: Lawsuit accuses California college of ‘inventing rules’ to censor conservatives

“As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this landmark law, our proposed changes will allow us to continue that progress and ensure all our nation’s students — no matter where they live, who they are, or whom they love — can learn, grow, and thrive in school,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a June statement. “We welcome public comment on these critical regulations so we can further the Biden-Harris administration’s mission of creating educational environments free from sex discrimination and sexual violence.”

Mr. Bartlett fears the rules will lead to pronoun mandates at public institutions, where students and teachers may face sexual harassment complaints for failing to use the preferred pronouns and language of others. 

The new regulations would also endanger parental rights, spur new rules for bathroom access, undermine women’s sports, and foster a system of kangaroo courts deciding the fates of kids accused of violations, he said.

Members of Title IX Network include litigators prepared to duke it out in courts and grassroots groups ready to engage with voters before November. Speakers at the rally hailed from groups such as the National Association of Scholars, the civil rights nonprofit New Civil Liberties Alliance and the Independent Women’s Forum. 

The coalition’s first step in the battle, however, involves flooding the Education Department with comments to oppose the regulations.

At the rally, Center for Equal Opportunity chairman Linda Chavez said she wanted to see thousands of Americans tell the Biden administration to stop in its tracks. 

“I’d like to see 250,000 comments on the secretary of education’s proposed regulations,” Ms. Chavez said. “Only by speaking out can we fight this.”

ATLANTA — Donald Trump has hired a prominent Atlanta criminal defense attorney known for defending famous rappers to represent him in matters related to the special grand jury that’s investigating whether the former president illegally tried to interfere with the 2020 election in Georgia.

Drew Findling’s clients have included Cardi B, Migos and Gucci Mane, as well as comedian Katt Williams. His Twitter bio includes the hashtag #BillionDollarLawyer and his Instagram feed is filled with photos of him posing with his well-known clients.

His most recent Instagram post, dated two days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June, says his firm is committed to “fighting to restore a woman’s right to choose, which has been destroyed by the Supreme Court,” suggesting his personal views don’t align with those of Trump’s Republican Party. He offered to defend anyone charged under Georgia’s restrictive abortion law free of charge.

After Trump insulted basketball star LeBron James’s intelligence in an August 2018 tweet, Findling called Trump the “racist architect of fraudulent Trump University” in a tweet and ended the post with “POTUS pathetic once again!”

The Findling Law Firm said in a statement released Thursday that it has been hired, along with attorneys Jennifer Little and Dwight Thomas, to represent Trump.

“We are committed to fighting this misuse of the law and taxpayer resources. The team is confident that there have been no violations of Georgia law. The focus on President Trump may be newsworthy, but this investigation is wholly misdirected and politically driven,” the statement says.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation early last year, and the special grand jury was seated in May at her request.

Willis has confirmed since the early days of the investigation that she’s interested in a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. During that conversation, Trump suggested Raffensperger could “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state.

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. “Because we won the state.”

Willis last month filed petitions seeking to compel testimony before the special grand jury from seven Trump associates and advisers, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. And she has said that she is considering subpoenaing the former president himself.

In addition to representing high-profile musical artists and other entertainers, Findling successfully defended Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill in a racketeering trial that threatened to end his law enforcement career. Hill was acquitted in 2013 on 27 felony charges in an indictment that accused him of using his office for personal gain.

Findling is currently defending Hill against charges in a federal indictment accusing him of violating the civil rights of several people in his agency’s custody by ordering that they be unnecessarily strapped into a restraint chair and left there for hours.