The Life and Death of Direct File: A Case Study in High-Stakes Government Tech
The Life and Death of Direct File [pdf]
A UC Berkeley case study chronicles the rise and fall of Direct File, the IRS's first free online tax filing service. Launched in 2024 after a rapid build by a cross-agency team, it won over 400,000 users with high satisfaction and trust. But in 2025, DOGE shuttered it. The study distills leadership lessons from the project's sprint to launch, its user-centered design, and the political forces that ended it.
Direct File succeeded not simply because taxpayers used it and loved it, nor only because the team that built it set a new standard for government technology. It succeeded because it helped rebuild something more fundamental: public trust in government’s ability to serve its citizens.