US October-February budget deficit hits record $1.147 trillion
0
President Donald Trump openly challenged U.S. allies on Wednesday by increasingtariffs on all steel and aluminum importsto 25% as he vowed to take back wealth “stolen” by other countries, drawing quick retaliation from Europe and Canada.
The Republican president’s use of tariffs to extract concessions from other nations points toward a possibly destructive trade war and a stark change in America’s approach to global leadership. It also has destabilized the stock market and stoked anxiety about an economic downturn.
“The United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and, frankly, by incompetent U.S. leadership,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re going to take back our wealth, and we’re going to take back a lot of the companies that left.”
He has separate tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, with plans to also tax imports from the European Union, Brazil, and South Korea by charging “reciprocal” rates starting on April 2.
The EU announced its own countermeasures on Wednesday. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that as the United States was “applying tariffs worth 28 billion dollars, we are responding with countermeasures worth 26 billion euros,” or about $28 billion. Those measures, which cover not just steel and aluminum products but also textiles, home appliances, and agricultural goods, are due to take effect on April 1.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer responded by saying that the EU was punishing America instead of fixing what he viewed as excess capacity in steel and aluminum production.
“The EU’s punitive action completely disregards the national security imperatives of the United States – and indeed international security – and is yet another indicator that the EU’s trade and economic policies are out of step with reality,” he said in a statement.
Meeting on Wednesday with Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Trump said “of course” he wants to respond to EU’s retaliations and “of course” Ireland is taking advantage of the United States.
“The EU was set up to take advantage of the United States,” Trump said.
Last year, the United States ran a $87 billion trade imbalance with Ireland. That’s partially because of the tax structure created by Trump’s 2017 overhaul, which incentivized U.S. pharmaceutical companies to record their sales abroad, Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, said on X.
Canada sees itself as locked in a trade war because of White House claims about fentanyl smuggling and that its natural resources and factories subtract from the U.S. economy instead of supporting it.
“This is going to be a day-to-day fight. This is now the second round of unjustified tariffs leveled against Canada,” said Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign affairs minister. “The latest excuse is national security even though Canada’s steel and aluminum add to America’s security. All the while there is a threat of further and broader tariffs on April 2 still looming. The excuse for those tariffs shifts every day.”
Canada is the largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States and plans to impose retaliatory tariffs of Canadian $29.8 billion ($20.7 billion) starting Thursday in response to the U.S. taxes on the metals.
Canada’s new tariffs would be on steel and aluminum products, as well as U.S. goods including computers, sports equipment, and water heaters worth $14.2 billion Canadian ($9.9 billion). That’s in addition to the 25% counter-tariffs on $30 billion Canadian (US$20.8 billion) of imports from the U.S. that were put in place on March 4 in response to other Trump import taxes that he’s partially delayed by a month.
Trump told CEOs in the Business Roundtable a day earlier that the tariffs were causing companies to invest in U.S. factories. The 7.5% drop in the S&P 500 stock index over the past month on fears of deteriorating growth appears unlikely to dissuade him, as Trump argued that higher tariff rates would be more effective at bringing back factories.
“The higher it goes, the more likely it is they’re going to build,” Trump told the group. “The biggest win is if they move into our country and produce jobs. That’s a bigger win than the tariffs themselves, but the tariffs are going to be throwing off a lot of money to this country.”
Democratic lawmakers dismissed Trump’s claims that his tariffs are about national security and drug smuggling, saying they’re actually about generating revenues to help cover the cost of his planned income tax cuts for the wealthy.
“Donald Trump knows his policies could wreck the economy, but he’s doing it anyway,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “Why are they doing all these crazy things that Americans don’t like? One reason, and one reason alone: tax breaks for billionaires, the north star of the Republican party’s goals.
In many ways, the president is addressing what he perceives as unfinished business from his first term. Trump meaningfully increased tariffs, but the revenues collected by the federal government were too small to significantly increase overall inflationary pressures.
Outside forecasts by the Budget Lab at Yale University, Tax Policy Center, and others suggest that U.S. families would have the costs of the taxes passed onto them in the form of higher prices.
With Wednesday’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, Trump is seeking to remedy his original 2018 import taxes that were eroded by exemptions.
After Canada and Mexico agreed to his demand for a revamped North American trade deal in 2020, they avoided the import taxes on the metals. Other U.S. trading partners had import quotas supplant the tariffs. The first Trump administration also allowed U.S. companies to request exemptions from the tariffs if, for instance, they couldn’t find the steel they needed from domestic producers.
While Trump’s tariffs could help steel and aluminum plants in the United States, they could raise prices for the manufacturers that use the metals as raw materials.
Moreover, economists have found, that the gains to the steel and aluminum industries were more than offset by the cost they imposed on “downstream’’ manufacturers that use their products.
At these downstream companies, production fell by nearly $3.5 billion because of the tariffs in 2021, a loss that exceeded the $2.3 billion uptick in production that year by aluminum producers and steelmakers, the U.S. International Trade Commission found in 2023.
Trump sees the tariffs as leading to more domestic factories, and the White House has noted that Volvo, Volkswagen and Honda are all exploring an increase to their U.S. footprint. But the prospect of higher prices, fewer sales, and lower profits might cause some companies to refrain from investing in new facilities.
“If you’re an executive in the boardroom, are you really going to tell your board it’s the time to expand that assembly line?” said John Murphy, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The top steel exporters to the U.S. are Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, and Japan, with exports from Taiwan and Vietnam growing at a fast pace, according to the International Trade Administration. Imports from China, the world’s largest steel producer, account for only a small fraction of what the U.S. buys.
The lion’s share of U.S. aluminum imports comes from Canada.
Reading the latest U.S. inflation report is like flicking through old vacation photos: it looks nice, but the experience is only temporary.Consumer pricesin February broke a recent hot streak, coming in below economists’ expectations. Problem is, President Donald Trump’s haphazard trade policies risk raising costs, choking off this progress and pinching households and already-flagging growth. That raises the grim possibility of true stagflation.
Annual growth in consumer prices of 2.8% is still above the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Still, aided by a 1% monthly decline in gasoline costs, the increase from January fell to 0.2%, the lowest reading since October. That might ordinarily be an encouraging sign that the trend is coming back under control. Yet the imposition of new 25% steel and aluminum tariffs, and resulting European and Canadian retaliation, just ahead of the inflation report’s release on Wednesday scrambles the picture.
The Fed’s Beige Book business survey, published last week, warned that firms around the country expected to pass along tariff costs, with some doing so preemptively. A National Federation of Independent Business survey opened new tab found a 10 percentage point jump in the proportion of companies raising prices. The NFIB report raised concerns that core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy categories, could reaccelerate from its February rate of 3.1% towards 4%.
Line chart of US core CPI
There remains some narrow hope that the tariff blitz may yet force trading partners to agree to collective disarmament, resulting in a negotiated outcome that actually reduces levies around the world. A glimmer of encouragement appeared on Tuesday, as the Canadian province of Ontario backed down from threats to cut off electricity supplies to the northeastern U.S. power grid in return for Trump nixing 50% tariffs on metals. But the seemingly arbitrary application of trade policy has spooked markets and driven up the risk of recession, with JPMorgan now penciling in a 40% chance of one in 2025, up from 30%.
A bit of froth coming off richly valued stock markets can be a sensible readjustment. As investors rush to safer assets, 10-year treasury yields have fallen to 4.22% from a recent high of 4.79% in January. That could have a stimulatory effect by lowering financing costs and mortgage rates. But the rest of Trump’s agenda, like hard-to-unwind lumber and steel tariffs and immigration restrictions, risks the worst of both worlds: higher costs, lower growth. The vacation is over, and the re-entry is rough.
Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg held meetings at the White House with Trump administration officials on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter.
“Mark’s continuing the meetings he's been holding with the administration on American technology leadership,” Meta spokesman Andy Stone said, without confirming the White House visit.
Puma (PUMG.DE), opens new tab will cut 500 jobs worldwide as part of its cost-reduction program, its CFO said after the German sportswear group late on Tuesday issued disappointing forecasts for the first quarter and 2025 amid weak demand in the U.S. and China.
Puma is also looking to fend off younger, fast-growing brands like On Running and Hoka as it strives to boost its brand and take a larger share of the $400 billion global sportswear market.
Around 150 jobs of the 500 will be cut at the Puma headquarters, CEO Arne Freundt said in a conference with journalists.
The company, which employs around 21,000 people worldwide, will also close selected unprofitable stores, Chief Financial Officer Markus Neubrand added.
A low single-digit percentage of businesses are affected, Freundt said.
Puma had launched a cost-cutting program aiming to reach an earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margin of 8.5% by 2027, compared with 7.1% in 2024.
The U.S. Department of Education said on Tuesday it would lay off nearly half its staff, a possible precursor to closing altogether, as government agencies scrambled to meet President Donald Trump's deadline to submit plans for a second round of mass layoffs.
The terminations are part of the department's "final mission," it said in a press release, alluding to Trump's vow to eliminate the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools, and provides federal funding for needy districts.
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.
Asked on Fox News whether the firings would lead to the department's dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said "yes," adding that doing so "was the president's mandate." The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.
Before announcing the layoffs, the agency ordered offices in the Washington area closed to staff from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notice seen by Reuters. An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the nature of the security issues prompting the closures.
Similar closures served as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against unscrupulous lenders.
The layoffs are the latest step in Trump's sweeping effort to downsize the government, led by the world's richest person Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has cut more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign aid and canceled thousands of programs and contracts, despite dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of those moves.
DOGE's blunt-force approach has frustrated several White House officials and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have confronted angry constituents at town halls. Trump told department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the final say on staffing, his first notable public move to restrain the Tesla CEO.
All U.S. government agencies have been ordered to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday, setting up the next phase of Trump's cost-cutting campaign. Several agencies have offered employees payments to retire early to fulfill Trump's demand.
Affected Education Department employees will be placed on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department said.
The union representing more than 2,800 department workers said it would fight the "draconian cuts."
"What is clear from the past weeks of mass firings, chaos, and unchecked unprofessionalism is that this regime has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serving their fellow Americans," said Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.
Trump and Musk have argued that the government is wasteful and bloated. DOGE claims it has saved $105 billion in cuts, but it has only publicly documented a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has been plagued by errors.
The federal government reported an estimated $162 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office annual report released on Tuesday. The vast majority were overpayments, the report said. Total federal outlays topped $6.75 trillion in that fiscal year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Item 1 of 2 A view of the U.S. Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo
The total improper payments figure was down sharply from 2023's $236 billion, the GAO said.
Other agencies have offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who agree to leave their jobs. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration.
The buyout offers, combined with another program that eases eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction way to help meet the Thursday deadline, human resources specialists at several federal agencies told Reuters.
The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad lawsuits after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and essentially dismantled entire departments like USAID and CFPB.
The General Services Administration, which manages the government's property portfolio, is also seeking approval to offer the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA could not be reached for comment outside of U.S. business hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already offered bonuses of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.
Human resources and public governance experts said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal challenges. It also requires workers who have accepted the offer to repay the money if they take another government job within five years.
"If your strategy is to get as many people out the door voluntarily, that reduces the risk of court orders and opposition to you in the long run," said Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan.
Only a couple of agencies have telegraphed how many employees they plan to cut in the second phase of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 staff.
Despite the looming deadline, no agency has yet submitted its job-cutting plan to OPM, the government's human resources department that is collating the data, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. OPM declined to comment.
OPM itself has offered lump-sum payments to some 650 of its employees, according to another person with knowledge of the matter. Employees were given until March 12 to respond.
On Monday, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent an email to all 19,000 employees announcing a Friday, March 14, deadline for a buyout program. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.
Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its prior offer by adding two months of full pay in addition to the bonus, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters. HHS could not be reached for comment outside of normal U.S. business hours.
Trump, Recession Fears, and Market Turmoil: What’s Happening to the Economy?
During Donald Trump’s presidency, the U.S. economy experienced significant highs and lows, marked by both record-breaking growth and growing concerns about an impending recession. The interplay between Trump’s policies, global market dynamics, and unpredictable geopolitical factors created a volatile economic landscape.
Economic Growth Under Trump
Trump entered office promising to revitalize the American economy through tax cuts, deregulation and renegotiated trade deals. His signature achievement, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, aimed to stimulate business investment and boost consumer spending. Initially, these measures appeared successful, with stock markets reaching all-time highs and unemployment dropping to historic lows. Many Americans credited Trump’s pro-business stance for the economic boom.
However, critics argued that the benefits of this growth were unevenly distributed, with corporate profits soaring while wage growth for average workers remained sluggish. Additionally, the tax cuts contributed to a ballooning national debt, raising concerns about long-term fiscal sustainability.
Trade Wars and Global Uncertainty
One of Trump’s most controversial economic strategies was his approach to international trade. He imposed tariffs on goods from major trading partners like China, the European Union, and Canada, aiming to protect American industries and reduce the trade deficit. While some supporters praised these moves as necessary to level the playing field, others warned that they could trigger retaliatory measures and disrupt global supply chains.
The resulting trade wars sparked uncertainty in financial markets, leading to periods of volatility. Investors grew increasingly anxious about the potential for an economic slowdown, particularly as businesses faced higher costs and consumers grappled with rising prices on imported goods.
#### Recession Fears and Market Reactions
By 2019, fears of a recession began to mount. Inverted yield curves—a phenomenon where long-term interest rates fall below short-term rates—historically signaled impending economic downturns. Analysts debated whether the U.S. economy was heading toward a crash, citing factors such as slowing global growth, ongoing trade tensions, and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions.
Despite these warning signs, Trump frequently touted the strength of the economy, often blaming the Federal Reserve for any setbacks. He accused Fed Chair Jerome Powell of undermining his administration’s progress by raising interest rates too quickly and then cutting them too slowly. This public feud added another layer of unpredictability to an already fragile situation.
The Broader Implications
While Trump’s presidency coincided with periods of robust economic performance, questions lingered about the sustainability of his policies. Critics warned that relying heavily on tax cuts and deregulation without addressing structural issues like income inequality and infrastructure investment could leave the economy vulnerable in the long run.
As political debates raged on, everyday Americans found themselves caught in the crossfire. For some, the booming stock market and low unemployment rates represented tangible improvements in their lives. Others, however, felt left behind, struggling to make ends meet amid rising healthcare and housing costs.
Donald Trump’s impact on the U.S. economy remains a topic of heated debate. While his administration oversaw impressive economic gains, it also navigated turbulent waters marked by trade disputes, market instability, and recession fears. Whether his policies laid the groundwork for sustained prosperity or sowed the seeds of future challenges continues to be a point of contention among economists, policymakers, and voters alike.
The U.S. budget deficit for the first five months of fiscal 2025 hit a record $1.147 trillion, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, including a $307 billion February deficit for President Donald Trump's first full month in office that was up 4% from a year earlier.
The October-February deficit, which included nearly four months until January 20 under former president Joe Biden, topped the previous record $1.047 trillion from October 2020 to February 2021 - a period marked by high COVID-19 relief spending and pandemic-constrained revenues.
Get weekly news and analysis on U.S. politics and how it matters to the world with the Reuters Politics U.S. newsletter. Sign up here.
The Treasury said February's deficit rose $11 billion from the same month in 2024, as outlays for debt interest, Social Security, and health care benefits swamped growth in revenues.
The results showed little impact from Trump's initial import tariffs on major trading partners and his administration's efforts to slash government spending so far.
February receipts totaled $296 billion, a record for that month. That figure was up 9%, or $25 billion, compared with the year-earlier period. But outlays in February totaled $603 billion, also a record for that month, and up 6%, or $36 billion, from a year earlier.
After calendar adjustments for both receipts and outlays, the adjusted deficit would have been $311 billion, matching the record February reported budget deficit in 2021, which was driven by COVID-19.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group, said government borrowings so far this fiscal year work out to about $8 billion a day.
"What needs no confirmation is that we are almost halfway through the fiscal year and yet we have done nothing in the way of making progress toward getting our skyrocketing debt under control," the group's president Maya MacGuineas said in a statement.
Fiscal year-to-date receipts rose 2%, or $37 billion, to a record $1.893 trillion, but outlays grew 13%, or $355 billion, to a record $3.039 trillion.
Including calendar shifts of benefit payments, the adjusted year-to-date deficit would have been $1.063 trillion - still a record - up 17%, or $157 billion, from the prior-year period.
Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports on February 4, but that increase did not materially impact customs receipts last month and will likely start showing up in March data, a Treasury official said. Trump increased the extra duty on Chinese goods to 20% on March 4.
Net customs receipts totaled $7.25 billion in February, down from $7.34 billion in January but up from $6.21 billion in February 2024.
The budget results for February did not show an appreciable change in overall outlays as a result of Trump's drive to slash the federal workforce and government spending through the informal Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The Department of Education, a major target of DOGE for cuts, saw its outlays fall to $8 billion last month from $14 billion in the year-earlier period. The Treasury official attributed the decline to reductions in outlays for elementary and secondary education programs.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration is attempting to dismantle, still showed an outlay of $226 million for February, compared to $542 million in the year-earlier period.
Driving the spending growth in February and year-to-date periods were higher spending on Treasury's interest on the public debt, outlays for Child Tax Credit payments, and increased Social Security payments due in part to a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for 2025.
For the year-to-date period, the Treasury's interest costs for the public debt came to $478 billion, up about 10%, or $45 billion, from a year earlier and outstripping military outlays of about $380 billion. Social Security outlays grew 8% to about $663 billion.
Mia Francis, a 22-year-old barista from Boston, filed her taxes on her own this year for the first time, using a free government tax filing program that made it easy because it did most of the work for her.
Francis said it took 45 minutes to finish her taxes with the IRS Direct File program, an electronic tax return filing system that the IRS made permanent last year and that has rolled out to 25 states.
Francis is expecting a $530 refund. And because she saved cash by not using a commercial tax preparation company to file her taxes, “that money will go a long way,” she said. She plans to use it for a trip to Amsterdam this year.
Despite its popularity with Francis and other members of the American public, the IRS Direct File’s fate remains unclear as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency cleave their way through the federal bureaucracy. So far, the program is still available for use ahead of the April 15 tax filing deadline, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent committed during his January confirmation hearing to maintaining it, at least for this tax season.
Representatives from the Internal Revenue Service and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on their plans for Direct File. But one Republican tax expert says the IRS never got congressional authorization to create Direct Files. Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation firms complain the program is a waste of money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use.
Direct File was rolled out as a pilot program in 2024 after the IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a “direct file” system as part of the money it received from the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. Last May, the agency announced that the program would be made permanent.
The IRS accepted 140,803 returns filed by taxpayers using Direct File in the 12 states where it was available last tax season. It’s been expanded to include half the country this year. It is unclear how many taxpayers have used Direct File this year.
Merici Vinton, an original architect of Direct File from the U.S. Digital Service, noted the ease and accessibility of the program and called it “a great example of how people should interact with the government in the 21st century.”
“We effectively launched a startup in the IRS,” she said. “It was built by an in-house product team, iteratively, and we ship updates to the software to improve user experience in real-time based on feedback. If we continue to invest in it, both taxpayers and the IRS can benefit.”
Musk posted last month on his social media site that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as the IRS’ Direct File program. This led to some confusion about whether Direct File is still available to taxpayers. However, conversations inside the IRS indicate that no decision has been made on whether to cut the program, two people familiar with these conversations tell the AP.
Former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, who oversaw the rollout of the program, said Treasury officials considering the future of the program should take into account “the voice of the taxpayers.”
“My reflection is that taxpayers are in very different situations and have very different preferences for how they want to file,” he said. “For those whose preference is to file electronically directly with the IRS for free, it’s a good option to have on the menu. But it should not replace other options.”
Derrick Plummer, a spokesperson for Intuit, one of the country’s largest commercial tax preparation firms, said free tax preparation had been available for years before Direct File came along.
“IRS Direct File is a solution in search of a problem, a waste of taxpayer dollars and a drain on critical IRS resources,” he said. A June 2024 Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report estimates that the annual costs of Direct File may range from $64 million to $249 million.
“The IRS should focus on its core mission including data privacy and customer service while policymakers in Washington focus on simplifying the tax code,” Plummer said.
However, other taxpayers, like 31-year-old Aquiel Warner in Austin, Texas, say they want to avoid using commercial tax preparation software.
Warner filed her taxes with Direct File in 10 minutes using her phone and a chatbot that the IRS provides. She likes the program’s convenience, that it prepopulated her tax forms, and that it allowed for free filing. Although she has some concerns about data privacy in the government — DOGE is reported to have access to some of the IRS’ internal systems — she feels more secure going through the IRS than commercial tax preparation services.
“I don’t want to be a product. I don’t want my information sold when I file my taxes,” she said. “I have to file my taxes, and I don’t want to be put in a situation where to file my taxes, I have to pay to get the help I need because I’m not a professional tax preparer.”
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the IRS never got explicit permission from Congress to create the Direct File system.
“It really doesn’t matter if it’s a good idea. It was done illegally,” he said, calling on Congress and the Justice Department to look into what he says is unauthorized spending that went into the creation of Direct File.
Democratic lawmakers in January asked Bessent and IRS commissioner nominee Billy Long to preserve the program. They wrote in a letter that “ending Direct File would hurt everyday Americans.” Long has not yet received a nomination hearing.
In the meantime, Musk and his cadre of computer programmers could decide to wield their tech skills to boost the program — or use the very same digital savvy to delete it.
For his part, Werfel hopes that the agency will keep the program. “It’s a big country with a lot of taxpayers with a lot of different preferences,” he said.
Francis, the Boston barista, hopes so, too.
”There are a lot of young people like me who are working and figuring out how to file their taxes — this just makes it faster and easier,” she said.