I love the brand idea of "Fueling America" - not so much the design, as I think it's a little too flashy for the IRS, but just the concept of attaching that money you're paying to the positive things you get out of it. Space travel, education, etc. are all important to our nation and our future and tend to get brushed aside behind "we need less taxes" or whatever, so branding the IRS as the reason we have things like that helps communicate to the average person the good behind it.

These are so superficial it's almost painful. Design can solve lots of things, but the tax process in a waaaay deeper hole than visual design could fix.

PS the last one (with the payment app) looks like a bootleg TurboTax.

When I glanced through this article I saw the 3 logo comparisons half way through and thought the first one was well thought out and elegant. Then I realized that was the original logo. That pretty much sums up the whole thing for me.

The white house shirt with the fountain looks like that person is taking a whiz. It's a tough sell to make the IRS seem like a good place. The first one looks like a bunch of modern day cold war propaganda. The second one with the logo isn't really a rebrand especially with just putting the "I Heart R S"which reads wrong and doesn't give the impact. The third one's layout looks like it was slapped together without too much thought and isn't too visually pleasing when compared to how brilliant Turbo Tax handles it all. The logos look like they could be a basis of something.

I'm sure any designer here could rebrand the IRS and it would be amazing.

Why are the colors used in all of these so ugly it hurts my eyes!?

The app idea was my favorite because some thought was behind it. The visual reimaginings were nice and but largely in la-la land IMO.