For decades, the makers of tax-preparation software, like TurboTax owner Intuit, have worked to prevent Americans from filing taxes for free with the federal government. Through a combination of aggressive lobbying and search-engine manipulation, Intuit and other corporations have kept Americans reliant on their services, despite a US government effort to introduce a free filing service.

That may now be changing, as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has launched a pilot program, Direct File, that allows taxpayers to file for free. On the Lever Time podcast, Arjun Singh recently talked with Paul Kiel, a ProPublica reporter who has covered the tax-prep industry, and Beth Simone Noveck, a professor of experiential artificial intelligence (AI) who has helped develop tech platforms for state and federal government, on tax-preparation companies’ long campaign against letting Americans file directly with the IRS and the prospects for the government’s new pilot program.