• The Treasury Department is officially suspending Direct File, a free, online tax filing platform the IRS launched last year. The department said it’s exploring alternatives. That includes strengthening its partnership with tax preparation companies through its Free File program. Direct File expanded to 25 states during this year’s filing season and saw higher favorability scores. But Treasury said the program cost too much and didn’t see enough usage to keep scaling it up. It said the IRS spent more than $40 million on Direct File this year. That breaks down to nearly $140 for every return submitted using Direct File.
  (Report on the replacement of Direct File - Treasury Department)
• Senate Democrats are trying to stop reductions-in-force during the government shutdown once and for all. A new bill called the SAFE Act would undo all RIF-related actions that have happened since the shutdown began. The legislation would also bar additional RIFs from occurring during any future lapse in appropriations. The Democrats’ bill comes after more than 4,000 RIF notices went out to federal employees last month. Almost all of those layoffs are currently on hold due to a court order.
  (Securing Assurance for Federal Employees (SAFE) Act - Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.))
• More than 35,000 people applied to work at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services since Sept. 30 under its Homeland Defender Campaign. USCIS said it has made hundreds of job offers and will begin onboarding the first Homeland Defenders soon. The agency said among those receiving offers are former law enforcement personnel and veterans with experience serving and protecting communities and the homeland. USCIS Homeland Defenders may be eligible for signing bonuses up to $50,000, student loan repayment, flexible duty locations and remote work options. USCIS is using an expedited hiring process for entry-level positions that do not require a college degree.
  (USCIS receives 50,000 applicants for Homeland Defenders jobs - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)
• Federal employees are experiencing disruptions in the workplace at a rate far higher than the national average. Close to one-third of federal employees say their workplace has been disrupted “to a very large extent.” That’s nearly triple the 10% of U.S. employees who say the same, according to the latest data from Gallup. The frequent disruptions in the workplace are leading to increases in stress and loneliness among federal employees, as well as a decline in employee engagement and satisfaction.
  (Federal employees are reporting major workplace disruptions at nearly triple the national average - Federal News Network)
• Michael Payne, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, told lawmakers he would work to restore the office’s credibility by refocusing on CAPE’s statutory mission as an independent advisory rather than an advocacy organization. The office has faced scrutiny for operating beyond its statutory responsibilities. House lawmakers previously considered shutting down the office altogether. While the 2024 defense policy bill mandated the department to overhaul how the office operates, it has yet to implement those changes. Payne also said the office has been pushing some of its cost-estimation work to the military services due to its strained workforce.
  (Nominee for Pentagon CAPE director pledges to return the office to its core mission - Federal News Network)
• Feds anticipate more co-workers will call out sick as the shutdown drags on. A Federal News Network “pulse poll” taken over a 36-hour period earlier this week shows two-thirds of the 730 respondents say they believe more of their co-workers will call out sick more often if the lapse in appropriations continues deeper into November. The concept of a "sick-out" has been used by air traffic controllers and transportation security officers, but it hasn't been widespread among other agencies. More than 43% of the respondents to the survey say they haven't noticed more employees taking sick leave since the shutdown began. A majority of the respondents, however, did say as the shutdown continues, they are very or somewhat concerned about their personal finances.
  (If the shutdown continues, more feds expecting ‘sick outs’ - Federal News Network)
• The Marine Corps has rolled out its enlistment bonuses for fiscal 2026, offering the biggest payout to recruits who sign up for specialized roles in cyber and electronics maintenance. The incentives aren't limited to high-demand technical roles; the service is also offering shipping bonuses to recruits in any specialty who agree to leave for boot camp on the service’s schedule. Recruits who enter the electronics maintenance and cyber and cryptologic operations career fields could earn up to $15,000. Recruits across dozens of military specialties can also qualify for a $5,000 or $10,000 shipping bonus. The service is also offering $7,000 or $15,000 “targeted investment” bonuses for applicants willing to extend their enlistment contracts by one or two years.
  (Marine Corps offers $15,000 bonuses to attract cyber, electronics recruits - Federal News Network)
• Federal employee unions are suing the Trump administration for including a new essay question on thousands of federal job applications. One of several new essay questions on job applications asks candidates how they would “advance the President’s executive orders and policy priorities,” and to name one or two executive orders significant to them. The unions claim the question allows the administration to weed out applicants who aren’t loyal to President Donald Trump’s policies. Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management states candidates aren’t required to respond to the essay question and that responses can’t be treated as a political litmus test. But candidates are still encouraged to answer the question.
  (Unions sue Trump administration over ‘loyalty question’ added to federal job applications - Federal News Network)

The post Treasury Department explores alternatives to suspended Direct File first appeared on Federal News Network.

A free, online tax filing platform run by the IRS will not be available during next year’s filing season.

The IRS sent an email on Monday to 25 states it partnered with on Direct File, which has been running for two filing seasons, telling them that “Direct File will not be available in Filing Season 2026,” and that “no launch date has been set for the future.”

The agency’s internal announcement, first reported by the Washington Post and NextGov/FCW, has been largely understood to mean the end of Direct File — a project that Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly targeted this year.

Former members of the Direct File team, however, claim the project largely succeeded in its goal of making it faster and easier for individuals to file their taxes. The IRS declined to comment.

The IRS launched Direct File last year as a pilot in 12 states, tapping into a portion of the billions of dollars in modernization funds it received under the Inflation Reduction Act. The project expanded to 25 states this year, and more than doubled its total number of users.

Direct File users gave the platform higher favorability scores this year, and 86% of Direct File users said their experience with the platform helped increase their trust in government.

Despite those metrics, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress spent much of this year planning to eliminate Direct File.

The agency told states that taxpayers who used Direct File to file their taxes will no longer be able to access their returns through the platform. Instead, taxpayers can access a summary of their returns online through their IRS online accounts, or by submitting a form to request a full copy of their return by mail.

“Thank you for participating in IRS Direct File during Filing Season 2025, and for your collaboration and partnership to create a free, simple way for taxpayers to file their federal and state taxes,” the email, obtained by Federal News Network, states.

Most of the staff working on Direct File have left the government or have been terminated. Lawmakers, meanwhile, have passed legislation ordering the IRS to explore alternatives, after scrapping earlier plans to eliminate it. Former IRS Commissioner Billy Long recently said at a tax conference in July that Direct File is “gone,” according to Bloomberg Tax.

Critics of Direct File say it competes with software from tax-preparation companies, and that the IRS spent tens of millions of dollars to launch the platform. Former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told reporters last year that launching Direct File cost nearly $32 million.

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law this summer gave the Treasury Department $15 million to launch a task force and research alternatives to Direct File that would allow up to 70% of all taxpayers to file their tax returns for free. An earlier version of the bill would have required the IRS to eliminate Direct File.

The IRS launched a congressionally mandated survey in September, asking taxpayers for their thoughts on Direct File, as well as possible alternatives. If a respondent said they were more likely to use a free online tax preparation program “paid for and operated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),” the survey provided a follow-up question, asking if they’d still be interested if “setting up and running the program is expected to have an initial cost to the federal government of at least $10-20 per return processed.”

A former IRS official who worked on Direct File told Federal News Network that the $10-20 cost estimate per return is accurate, assuming the platform was deployed to all 50 states.

In May, the IRS published the vast majority of Direct File’s code on GitHub. As a work of the U.S. government, Direct File is in the public domain.

The open-source software allows state governments to pick up where Direct File left off, and develop their own free, online platforms for state tax returns.

The post IRS tells states Direct File ‘will not be available’ in 2026 first appeared on Federal News Network.