IRS Direct File is gone. Here is what W-2 filers can do now.

What happened to Direct File

Direct File was the IRS’s free web tool for simple returns — W-2 wages, a little interest, the standard deduction. It ended before the 2026 filing season, so the option of filing a simple federal and state return directly with the government, at no cost, is off the table this year. That leaves three realistic routes for most W-2 workers.

Option 1: IRS Free File, if you can find it and qualify

The IRS still runs Free File, a program that pairs taxpayers with partner software at no cost. The catch is twofold: it is capped at $89,000 of income, and it is genuinely hard to find — it lives behind a government page rather than in search results, and the partner offers change from year to year. If you are under the income cap and patient with the hunt, it is the cheapest route that exists. It is worth an hour of looking before you pay anyone.

Option 2: Do-it-yourself software

TurboTax, H&R Block online, FreeTaxUSA, Cash App Taxes and their siblings walk you through the return yourself. The pattern worth knowing about: the headline product is free, and the costs appear partway through — an upgrade screen here, a paid state filing there, a fee for “extra help” at the end. Reviews of the big names are full of people who started on the free edition and finished somewhere else. If you are confident, truly have a two-W-2 return, and click carefully, FreeTaxUSA or Cash App Taxes can be very cheap. If you are not confident, the upgrade prompts are doing exactly what they are designed to do.

Option 3: a local preparer

A human preparer, often an independent office or a storefront chain, will do a simple return with two W-2s and a state filing for roughly $220 to $240. You get a real person checking the work, which DIY software never gives you. The trade-offs are price and friction: it usually means an office visit in February, and some storefront offices lead with refund advances and loud promises that make people rightly wary.

Option 4: a flat-fee preparer, online

This is the gap Easy Tax sits in. A named, credentialed preparer does the whole return for one flat $99 — federal plus one state — shown before you start and never raised. You upload your W-2s, answer a few plain questions, and the return is ready to review online within a week. You pay only after you have seen it, then approve the e-signature and it is e-filed. No interview maze, no upgrade screens, no surprise state fee.

The honest comparison: if you are eligible for Free File and don’t mind hunting for it, that is cheaper than us. If you are confident in software and click past every upsell, that is cheaper too. What $99 buys is a human preparer checking the return, a price you knew on day one, and no Saturday spent on it.

If you missed a year, or need to fix one

The same flat price covers late prior-year returns: if a year went by unfiled, it is the same $99 for a simple federal-plus-state return. An amended return is a flat $149, and a return with a side business, rental or crypto on it is quoted flat at $149 before any work continues.

Easy Tax is a small tax service with one price and no tiers — the $99 flat-fee return is the whole offer, and the page explains exactly what it covers.

A note on how this works: this site, and the business behind it, are built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, and the returns themselves are prepared by a credentialed human preparer.