The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that four states — Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York — plan to integrate their state taxes into the Direct File pilot for the filing season of 2024.
The IRS said it will conduct "a limited-scope pilot during the 2024 tax season to further assess customer support and technology needs," and "provide a platform for the IRS to evaluate successful solutions for potential operational challenges" identified in the report the IRS submitted to Congress earlier this year.
Taxpayers in nine other states without an income tax — Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — may also be eligible to participate in the pilot, the IRS announced.
Washington has also chosen to join the integration effort for the state's application of the Working Families Tax Credit.
"All states were invited to join the pilot, but not all states were in a position to join the pilot at this time," the IRS said.
The IRS announced in late June that it would pilot a free tax-filing tool next year.
A recent audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration criticized surveys sent by the IRS to taxpayers about the agency's proposed e-file system, stating the surveys may have been improperly designed to mislead Americans about their ability to file state taxes via direct e-file.
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement that the states joining the effort "is a critical step forward for this innovative effort that will test the feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the IRS."
