I’m going to go out on a limb and say you probably don’t love tax season as much as Jeremy Bearer-Friend.

“I actually had my bachelor party on April 15, which is Tax Day,” said Bearer-Friend, a professor of tax law at George Washington University. “I look forward to taxes.”

That opinion is probably not shared by, well, most people. According to the IRS, the average American taxpayer spends more than $200 on tax preparation services every year — think TurboTax, H&R Block or TaxSlayer.

However, the IRS has been piloting a program aimed at cutting out those intermediaries. Now in its second year, Direct File allows some taxpayers to file their returns online, directly with the IRS for free. And this year, it’s expanded to be available to about half the country.

Bearer-Friend said the idea behind Direct File is simple: “We all are obligated to pay, and it’s a bit silly that somehow we would have to go then to a private company to actually perform that legal and civic duty.”

And it’s not like the IRS needs you to deliver all your W-2s and 1099s, according to Joe Bankman, a law professor at Stanford.

“What’s always been infuriating to me is that the government already has a lot of the information it asks you to provide,” he said.

Bankman compares preparing tax returns to paying a credit card bill. “Visa doesn’t ask you to keep track of all your receipts each month and then write them down and add them up and fine you if you forget one. That’s what the government’s doing.”

Direct File is available through the IRS website to taxpayers in 25 states, including California, Texas and New York. The program is aimed at people with relatively simple returns, per Amanda Renteria, CEO of Code for America.

“So if you have a lot of complex, you know, couple of houses et cetera, this is not going to be the right tool for you,” she said.

Direct File is also not available for gig economy workers. But Renteria said that for a good chunk of American wage earners, Direct File could make doing taxes simpler and cheaper. And on that front, she said the U.S. has fallen behind.

” In many countries, you actually get a bill. And then you can actually decide, ‘Here you go, I’ll pay this.’ Or if you don’t, then you have to fill out a larger form,” she said.

The tax prep industry in the U.S. opposes Direct File. In a statement to Marketplace, Intuit — the maker of Turbotax — said that “free tax preparation has been available to every American taxpayer for years.” And it’s true: There are services offering free online tax prep.

But “usually that tax filing interaction ends up being an opportunity for upselling,” noted Jeremy Bearer-Friend of George Washington University.

In his confirmation hearings this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent committed to keeping Direct File up and running this year, but made no promises beyond that.