Intuit and H&R Block spent a combined $7.1 million on federal lobbying in 2025—their highest annual total on record—while the IRS Direct File program was being wound down by the Trump administration in November 2025. The program was projected to save taxpayers up to $23 billion in filing fees over the next decade, but the article documents tax prep companies lobbying against it and against the government's competing free filing efforts since 2003. What remains unclear is whether the lobbying was a decisive factor in the program's suspension or whether it accelerated an outcome the Trump administration and Republican Congress already favored—the article notes the broader political context (DOGE targeting the IRS, Republican hostility toward the agency) may have been more important than industry pressure alone.