The story originally appeared on KQED.

It’s been a long, fraught road to bring free direct tax filing to the United States. Several groups across the country pushed the IRS for years to make this tool available so that more working- and middle-class families would have access to free tax filing services and reduce their dependency on private tax filers. “We believe that the tax filing should be free, simple, easy, automatic,” says Teri Olle, with the Economic Security Project, one of the organizations that successfully advocated for the Direct File Tool. “This pilot really just puts money into people’s hands.”