Most people don't actually require ID.me to deal with the IRS, even if e-filing.

Unless you lost your last return and need to request a trancript

I mean yeah, I'm extremely uncomfortable with commercial ID solutions when accessing government services. When I can I even avoid government websites that have captchas or other third party resources on them but that's becoming increasingly unworkable. It's absurd that I should be required to leak my personal information to third parties in order to make use of a government service (ie something with no competition that I am legally obligated to use).

For the IRS it doesn't even make sense because I can drop paper forms in the mail. Don't need any ID whatsoever for that.

I don't trust dropping any PII/payment-related forms in the mail either, stemmed from a recent experience in which a NYC's DoF had used my information to pay for services on my behalf without authorization.