In the first paragraph, "Meanwhile, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed a bill yesterday to allow free government-prepped returns."

Note it says "free" and "government prepared". Setting aside that those are mutually exclusive concepts, that says nothing about simplifying taxes - it's just having the government do the complicated stuff instead of you (or your accountant).

At least the govt is ostensibly about the public good. Anyone else through self interest is suspect. Which gets back to the title of the original post here for this thread...

You seem to be confusing, gratis, and Taxpayer-funded.

The IRS is already essentially doing your taxes already (certainly for the most common and straightforward returns): they have to verify your statement. The actual computation is trivial (for them).

"Doing your taxes" mostly involves showing you their calculations. It's almost a freedom of information issue.

Compared to the cost of private prep and filing, it basically does seem free (gratis). And even if you choose to dispute or file independently, such a program could save each filer time and money by providing a base document; you would just provide diffs.

The IRS mostly just trusts what you tell them for a lot of stuff (like charitable donation amounts). This is why audits are a thing.