Post Politics Now: Obamas returning to White House for official portrait unveilings

It’s a landmark step toward overhauling the way most Americans file their taxes and ending years of domination of tax prep by private corporations.

Democrats have long lamented that millions of American pay for the privilege of filing taxes, and that corporate tax services take money from the neediest households. Hardly anyone uses the free e-filing options that industry supports because of restrictions on which returns qualify.

But the IRS has lacked the funding — or the clout to outmaneuver private lobbyists — to seriously consider its own e-filing platform, current and former officials say, forcing taxpayers instead to deal with a consortium of private providers and setting the agency back decades in technology and customer service.