Gov. Katie Hobbs announced Tuesday that Arizona will participate in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) free tax filing pilot program.
Under the IRS Direct File Pilot Program, certain Arizonans may file their state and federal returns directly to the IRS for free. While the program would come at no direct cost to those eligible, taxpayers ultimately subsidize this additional service.
In a press release, Hobbs said that the program would make filing taxes “convenient and easy.” Although Hobbs said that taxpayers could file both their state and federal tax returns through the pilot program, the IRS noted that its program would not prepare state returns but would instead guide taxpayers to a state-supported tool to file a stand-alone state tax return.
Today, I am putting money back into taxpayers' pockets by announcing a new & easy way to file taxes for free.
Starting in 2024, Arizonans can file their state & federal returns in one seamless experience.
It’s unclear which Arizona taxpayers may participate: the IRS disclosed that it hasn’t finalized its determinations of who would qualify. Expected, but not finalized, eligibility includes: W-2 wage income, Social Security and railroad retirement income, unemployment compensation, interest of $1,500 or less, Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Credit for Other Dependents, standard deduction, student loan interest, and educator expenses.
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel promised to reporters in a call on Tuesday that this program wouldn’t replace popular private tax preparation companies like H&R Block or Intuit’s TurboTax.
“I can’t stress enough that Direct File, if pursued further after the pilot, would be just another choice taxpayers have to help them prepare their tax returns,” said Werfel.
Intuit spokesman Derrick Plummer claimed in a statement to PBS that the direct file program would cost billions of dollars.
“An IRS direct-to-e-file system is redundant and will not be free — not free to build, not free to operate, and not free for taxpayers,” said Plummer.
California, Massachusetts, and New York are the three other states that signed onto the pilot program for the 2024 filing season. The IRS noted that taxpayers in states without an income tax may be eligible to participate as well: Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
The direct file pilot doesn’t replace another existing free direct filing service by the IRS, Free File Program (FFP): a public-private partnership between the IRS and Free File, Inc., or Free File Alliance (FFA), a consortium of tax preparation and filing software industry companies. Those with an income of $73,000 or less qualify for a free federal tax return under that existing program.
The FFP was created in 2002 with the agreement that the IRS wouldn’t create its own free tax-filing software. However, the IRS removed that provision from the FFP memorandum in late 2019 following ProPublica investigative reporting that then-members of the FFA, namely Intuit and H&R Block (who together served 70 percent of FFA users), were charging FFP-eligible taxpayers for tax return services. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) in a follow-up audit found that over 14 million FFP-eligible taxpayers ended up paying for a commercial service for tax returns.
H&R Block departed the FFP in 2020, then Intuit in 2021. Intuit settled last year for $141 million over the claims.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found last year that the FFP has been vastly underutilized by eligible taxpayers, and that the IRS faced risks by relying on the private industry to provide free tax filing. Of the 71 percent of taxpayers eligible for FFP, only about three percent participated in 2020. The GAO recommended the IRS develop other free tax e-filing options.
In 2020, TIGTA reported that not many taxpayers used the FFP because it was rife with “complexity and insufficient oversight.”
The IRS promised to publicly share the results of the direct file pilot program once completed. More information on the program may be discovered here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced legislation to expand remote work for federal employees.
Sinema rolled out the bill, the Telework Reform Act of 2023, earlier this month alongside Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). In a press release, Sinema said that the bill would especially improve work opportunities for military families.
“We’re cutting costs and expanding career opportunities by improving federal telework for Arizonans and military spouses who rely on telework to stay employed when moving due to military orders,” said Sinema.
Lankford stated that remote and telework expansion would help break up the Washington, D.C. centralization and diversify the federal workforce.
“By re-thinking how the government uses remote work, we are encouraging federal agencies to hire in diverse communities across the country; instead of requiring our workforce to be centralized in Washington, DC,” said Lankford.
The bill specifically requires all executive agency leadership to produce a report on how their agencies could coordinate with the Secretary of Defense to recruit military spouses for remote work positions. The legislation also contains a provision enabling an executive agency to noncompetitively appoint veterans, military and law enforcement spouses, and high-performing employees to remote work positions.
Other aspects of the annual report would identify opportunities and benefits to remote work and telework expansion, including cost savings and productivity boosts, as well as the technology necessary to accomplish it.
Federal guidance distinguishes teleworkers and remote workers based on their main work site, or “duty station.” A federal agency’s home office serves as the duty station for teleworkers, meaning they have some mandatory in-person office attendance in addition to their remote work. A remote worker’s duty station is their home.
The bill would require federal agencies to determine which jobs would be accomplished feasibly through remote work, and perform annual reviews to determine whether remote work remains feasible or necessary for those jobs.
It would also require teleworkers to report at least twice per pay period to their agency’s home office.
In July, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that over 500 million square feet of federal government office space has been greatly underutilized. The GAO found that 17 out of a sample of 24 agencies (constituting 21.5 million square feet of office space) had only achieved an average capacity of 25 percent or less over a three-month review.
According to the GAO, federal agencies spend an average of $7 billion annually: $2 billion on maintaining and operating office space, and $5 billion to lease the buildings.
The last Office of Personnel Management (OPM) report analyzing the status of federal employee telework, issued last December, reported that 47 percent of federal employees participated in routine or situational telework in the 2021 fiscal year.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow sided with the professor who attacked two men questioning him about his involvement in drag story hours, casting them as “bullies.”
In a statement on Saturday, Crow accused the two men working with Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a right-wing activist organization, of following, harassing, pushing, and injuring David Boyles, an English professor and the founder of Drag Story Hour Arizona. Crow claimed that the TPUSA men were lying in wait for Boyles to attack him.
“It is astounding to me that individuals from Turning Point USA would wait for an ASU instructor to come out of his class to follow him, harass him and ultimately shove him to the ground, bloodying his face,” said Crow. “This is the kind of outrageous conduct that you would expect to see from bullies in a high school cafeteria.”
Crow also claimed that the TPUSA men “ran away” from the scene before police arrived.
Crow’s claims conflict with the video evidence produced by both TPUSA and ASU law enforcement, the latter which the president included in his statement and said he reviewed multiple times.
In the surveillance footage, Boyles lunges and grabs at the TPUSA individual holding his camera. The other TPUSA individual, Frontlines reporter Kalen D’Almeida, pushes Boyles away from his peer in response. After Boyles stands up, Boyles and the TPUSA men walk in the same direction off camera. Nobody ran in the footage provided, and all left the scene of the incident together at an unhurried pace.
Crow denounced TPUSA as a whole, declaring that endeavors like the Boyles interview and the organization’s Professor Watchlist were “antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+, and misogynistic” exploitations to generate fundraising and social media engagement.
A separate video of the incident from TPUSA showed that the two men approached Boyles, with one remaining silent while filming and the other asking questions. The question that appeared to have Boyles lunge for the camera regarded sodomizing minor males.
“Also, I was taking a look at your Substack, and it seems like you really, really hate Americans? Like you just are disgusted by Americans in this country,” said D’Almeida. “And it’s funny because, you would like to see a different America exist where little boys are sodomized by people like you, right?”
ASU President Crow was quick to issue a statement defending this professor, who clearly hit first. Physical violence is never ok.
Death to Israel rallies on campus this week received no response from the administration. https://t.co/ANvQvN778q
Boyles’ beliefs were detailed on his Substack, now hidden behind a paywall.
In an Instagram post, Boyles claimed that the men “shouted” at him and accused them of terrorism.
“One filmed on his phone while the other shouted horrible and incendiary things at me, repeating standard right-wing nonsense about Drag Story Hour and also accusing me personally of pedophilia and hating America,” wrote Boyles. “[I feel] angry, violated, embarrassed and despairing at the fact that we have come to normalize this kind of harassment and violence.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University (ASU) leadership has ignored Meghan McCain’s request to condemn the pro-Hamas protest that occurred on campus last week.
The ASU chapter of Students For Justice in Palestine (SJP) held the protest. The silence from ASU leadership prompted McCain to question the decision to have the name of her late father, Sen. John McCain, associated with a new library at ASU.
“No entity that condones such behavior on their campus has any business hosting my fathers library in his name. Full stop,” said McCain.
No entity that condones such behavior on their campus has any business hosting my fathers library in his name. Full stop.
I severely encourage the heads of Arizona State University @ASU to come out and condemn this support of Hamas immediately. https://t.co/CZAanptOpO
One user asked whether foreign students who attended the protest would have their visa status revoked due to their support of a terrorist group. Hamas is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
Question. My understanding is that foreign students are required to answer if they are members o support any terrorist group in order to get a visa. So, if a foreign student support Hamas is his/her visa automatically revoked?
On Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) requested Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to revoke the visa statuses of those who attended any pro-Hamas protests.
SJP of ASU held the rally at the behest of their National SJP, which called for a National Day of Resistance last Thursday. Not all campuses who pledged to participate ended up following through.
University of Arizona (UArizona) President Robert Robbins issued a condemnation of pro-Hamas sentiment from the SJP chapter on their campus, but ultimately allowed the protest to take place on First Amendment grounds.
“The national organization has made statements endorsing the actions of Hamas in Israel, which are, of course, antithetical to our university’s values,” said Robbins.
The SJP of UArizona canceled their protest in response to Robbins’ letter, declaring that the president’s rhetoric endangered them. The chapter denied endorsement of Hamas activity, specifically distancing themselves from the National SJP.
“[O]ur organization is independently run and led specifically by students at the University of Arizona. Associating our chapter with any and all claims made by other SJP affiliates is a gross misrepresentation of our values, clearly designed to misalign our goals and demonize our presence on campus,” said the chapter.
Yet, SJP of UArizona heeded the National SJP’s call to host its protest on the National Day of Resistance.
In their call to action, the National SJP declared in a since-deleted post that Hamas terrorism constituted “a historic win for Palestinian resistance” and encouraged its supporters to engage in “armed confrontation with the oppressors” in addition to rallies. The toolkit provided for hosting the National Day of Resistance included the infamous template depicting a Hamas paraglider.
“This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors,” stated NSJP.
I would simply not declare the mass murder of civilians "a historic win" for my cause in which "our people" acted against "the enemy" to "capture over a dozen settlements" and call for more "armed confrontation with the oppressors." pic.twitter.com/ixli3DtNeB
SJP of ASU plans to hold another protest at the end of this month.
ATTENTION ARIZONA: ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE. On Saturday, October 21st, we will be having a rally and march for Palestine. The fight for justice and liberation is not over.
The city of Tucson will have spent around $5 million to house illegal immigrants over the course of nine months.
The city expanded its budget for the illegal immigrants during its regular council meeting last week.
The $5 million covered an April 1 through Dec. 31 budget this year, or nine months. The bulk of the funding, $4.3 million, covers overflow hotel nights on an as-needed basis. $550,000 covers the city’s Sun Tran bus service to shuttle the illegal immigrants from shelter sites and the Tucson International Airport. The remaining $150,000 was for staff on an as-needed basis.
In agenda documents, the city detailed how the border crisis has resulted in a significant increase in illegal immigrants that overwhelmed the Casa Alitas Welcome Center and necessitated overflow into non-congregate settings such as hotels and local transportation such as the city’s Sun Tran bus service.
Glad to have hosted @SecMayorkas this week to discuss how the City of Tucson is an immigrant welcoming community and the importance of having a safe, humane and orderly process for asylum seekers. ¡Gracias! pic.twitter.com/G5qgcPJuEX
The illegal immigrant flood also resulted in the Pima County Emergency Food and Shelter Program Local Board to request additional relief funding from their national board.
In April, the city entered into an agreement with Pima County to reimburse the city for the emergency shelter, transportation, and staff support services provided to illegal immigrants amid the ongoing border crisis. The city characterized the illegal immigrants they served as “legally present.”
The funding ultimately originates from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) serving as the primary pass-through entity and the Emergency Food Shelter (EFSP) National Board serving as the secondary pass-through entity.
The additional funding was approved collectively as part of last week’s consent agenda.
Congress first began appropriating funds for EFSP specifically for migrants in 2019 through the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border, with its first round of funds totaling $30 million. In 2021, Congress issued $110 million through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. In 2022, Congress issued $150 million through the DHS Appropriations Act of 2022.
This morning I spoke with our federal partners who notified me of the possibility of increased single migrants coming in through the Tucson sector.
This year, Congress issued $425 million through the DHS Appropriations Act of 2023.
Pima County Grants Management & Innovation has received over $26 million in funding specifically for illegal immigrant humanitarian relief. The various World Hunger Ecumenial Arizona Task Forces have received, collectively, over $19.4 million: the Maricopa County branch received over $11 million, the Cochise County branch received over $75,000, the Disculpos de Reino branch received over $66,000, and the Yuma County branch received nearly $8.2 million.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
