April is a New York-based tax platform offering embedded solutions for US taxpayers, helping them optimize year-round, maximizing tax savings, and minimizing filing efforts. Founded in 2021, April most recently raised a $30M Series A in 2022, with funding from Treasury, Team8, Nyca Partners, and others.

In an interview with The Financial Revolutionist, Ben Borodach, April’s Co-Founder & CEO, describes the platform’s new e-filing solution, discusses the implications of a government-built filing product, and outlines regulatory changes that can improve the US taxpaying experience.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Financial Revolutionist: What is April, and what’s been happening at April recently?

Ben Borodach, Co-Founder & CEO: Our mission is to embed intelligent tax solutions anywhere Americans make financial decisions. We recently announced the rollout of our e-file product with 12 amazing fintech partners. We’re in the process of fixing and improving the way that Americans can take control of their finances by leveraging tax.

The Financial Revolutionist: As far as the e-filing solution goes, what were the conversations like internally around building it out and confronting that as the next challenge for April to work on from a product perspective?

When you look at the state of affairs and at the tax ecosystem right now, the current tax law has evolved dramatically over the last three decades. The federal law has actually expanded over 300%: It's now 8500 pages. What we've seen is a law that continues to expand with a changing economy that now includes Uber drivers and cryptocurrency and more than 330 million people, and a software stack which has really been left behind.

So when we looked at how we can make taxes more approachable and accessible, we went back to first principles and said, “Well, all of the software that Americans are using to file, whether that's via a tax professional or themselves, is ultimately software that's quite old, and what we're left with is a process that is retrospective, one that is really linear and static, and one that's not equally accessible.” This is a really significant problem set, but on the other hand, the opportunity space to build a modern software stack that is continuous, embedded, and personalized can just a massive impact on not only making the tax law equally accessible to all Americans, but also really change the way that people can leverage tax to achieve better financial outcomes.

So it sounds like it's having the tech stack catch up to the expanding scope and comprehensiveness of the regulatory space.

When the software market started, there was this notion of maximum refund. Now, it’s true that a software can help you get different credits and deductions that you may not have been aware of if you tried to file on your own, but I think it's fair to assume that that's roughly table stakes now. The real opportunity is that some portion of Americans get access to very expensive financial advisors and tax advisers that can actually optimize the structure and decisions that they make during the year. And most of us do not.

And so the question really became: How can you refactor the process so that there's a system in place where all Americans can get tax planning and visibility and really come into the light onto what their tax situation is, have the same opportunity to take advantage of the tax law during the year, and then also reduce the time and friction that it takes to be tax compliant?

So making it an ongoing process rather than this annual ritual is key to that optimization.

Exactly.

The US is basically the only advanced economy in the world that doesn't have a free solution for filing taxes. How are you approaching the possibility that, through greater IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act, there might soon be a free, useful, and widely accessible public tax filing solution?

It's a great question. And let me start by saying that, ultimately, taxes and the IRS are a reflection of the laws that Congress enacts. Our goal is to help people take advantage of the laws that Congress has enacted to the fullest extent so that they can maximize their financial situation. I think if you look at the recent report that the IRS put out, there are many things in there that are discussed, some of which relate to an IRS e-file solution, but others relate to modernizing the technology or the processes that the IRS uses. Some of that is the systems that the software providers like April integrate with, and others relate to the way that the taxpayer can get updated by the IRS.

As a company, I think we're taking a bit of a different approach than maybe other providers in the market. We are pro anything that provides more access to American taxpayers and a better understanding of their overall situation. What we're advocating for is an open market where consumers have more options.

Are there regulatory or financial variables that explain why other tax platforms haven’t provided ongoing services throughout the year the way April does?

It’s a confluence of three things. The first is that the tax law continues to grow. And so that's made it really difficult for new market entrants to establish themselves. The second challenge is that the systems that the federal government and states use are different and need to be updated.There's a lot of work to upgrade these systems, which would make it easier for the providers to integrate and provide better services to taxpayers.

And the last is that—and I think this is the piece that gets lost a little bit from the conversation—we live in a federated system, and our government is federated by design. So we spend a lot of time talking about the IRS, but the reality is that most Americans need to file federal and state taxes. And all of these state systems operate somewhat independently of themselves. And so that's the conglomeration that makes this really complicated and why this hasn't really been attempted before. And when you look at existing providers, many of these providers were built many years ago. And so they're stuck with a lot of legacy tech and technology debt. It’s not so easy to pivot into a modern software and financial architecture stack.

Having states move towards a unified e-filing infrastructure can help—but are there other changes from a technological perspective that you think would improve both April’s standing and your clients’ experience?

Harmonizing, upgrading, and modernizing the transmission system certainly would help. Having more robust endpoints to test against would help, as would providing better taxpayer support both that the software providers can access and that the taxpayer can access directly, such as the status of their return, the status of their refund, and the ability to resolve any issues. Those are all things that would improve our ability to offer services and also improve the overall tax experience for all Americans.

Are there any other regulatory—not just technological—components that you think should improve or change over time?

At the end of the day, Congress is elected and they enact the tax law. Our view is that, ultimately, officials have enacted laws that they believe are in the interest of their constituents. We see ourselves more as the purveyor of helping people take advantage, remain compliant, and maximize. We're pro any regulation that would make fair, more transparent, and more accessible tax filing and services for everybody.

And certainly it's floated whether we should have a more consolidated tax system that's easier to navigate. But the flip side of that is you'd have fewer accommodations for specific circumstances. Would you be able to incentivize or take care of a single parent, or would you be able to provide incentives for electric vehicles, and so on? We tend to skew very much towards personalization in many types of situations—that's why we have the complexity that we have, and I think it's ultimately up to the people to vote in Congress members that will make a tax law that they believe reflects the kind of country they want to live in.