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OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openlyOpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openlyPosted Mar 18, 2010 2:12 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)Parent article: OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly I've theorized for years that tax software is one of the best examples of a good niche for proprietary software. It's not done for love, it's not (when best done) done by programmers at all.
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OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 18, 2010 13:10 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
>I've theorized for years that tax software is one of the best examples of a good niche for
>proprietary software. It's not done for love, it's not (when best done) done by programmers >at all. If tax authorities would supply some basic open source parts (likely mainly libraries) which they updated as needed the rest would be easier.
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 18, 2010 14:30 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I suspect one reason why it's so often abandoned is that the annual tax-return ritual is mostly unique to the US. Other countries have some analogue of PAYE with *completely automatic* tax deduction, with things only changing when you're a sufficiently high earner that you can afford to hire someone to do the boring scutwork for you (or if you run a company).
In all my working life I have seen one tax form a year, which I never had to fill out anything on. Total number of tax forms required: nil. This is true of most employees in the UK and much of the rest of Europe as well. That's a large number of potential developers who simply have no reason to be interested in this stuff at all, even if the tax code wasn't intrinsically country-specific...
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 18, 2010 14:39 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Ah, right.
I was going to post asking what exactly this is for and who the target audience is, so thanks for implicitly answering that. I didn't realise US *individuals* needed to do this stuff - it sounds like more work than most small businesses need to do here.
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 19, 2010 17:19 UTC (Fri) by dkrawchuk (subscriber, #21896) [Link]
In Canada also you are required by law to file a tax return if you earned any income in the previous year even if you are a minor. The upside is that the Canadian Revenue Agency has a very efficient online filing capability. The downside is that the mandatory file format can only be generated by CRA approved proprietary software.
Need for computers to file income taxes Posted Mar 20, 2010 23:10 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] In the US, only a few individuals have to file anything so complex that a computer would help. Most individuals have income only from wages and simple investments and any adjustments to that income that they may be entitled to fall below a threshold. Such a person could fill out the one-page form quicker than he could make the computer print it. He doesn't even have to do any arithmetic. It's still embarassing for the country, though, because for such a person, the government already has all the information on the form and already has all the money, so really the government should send the form to the taxpayer instead of the other way around. I think about 10% of the population has finances complex enough to require more sophisticated filing, and for them, computer assistance is extremely helpful. For example, someone who sells something for more than he paid for it (income tax is due on the profit) or runs a business or has high medical expenses (income tax is not due on income used for that).
Need for computers to file income taxes Posted Mar 21, 2010 0:03 UTC (Sun) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]
> I think about 10% of the population has finances complex enough to
> require more sophisticated filing
Hmm, anyone that owns a house pretty much can't (or shouldn't) file the short form. That covers a *lot* people ...
jake
Need for computers to file income taxes Posted Mar 21, 2010 1:47 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Hmm, anyone that owns a house pretty much can't (or shouldn't) file the short form. That covers a *lot* people ... Yes, I was wrong. I found references that say only 60-70% of US taxpayers use the one page (1040EZ) and two page (1040A) short forms. I don't know if the 1040A is complicated enough for anyone to use a computer to generate it, but maybe. I also looked up the house ownership impact. For those not familiar with the relevance of owning a house to income tax, it's actually about whether you borrowed money to buy your home. Income you spend on interest on such a loan is not taxable (and not for any sensible reason -- it's historical). I found out 70% of US homes are occupied by an owner and 60% of those homes are collateral on a loan, so that pretty much accounts for all the people who file the long form.
Need for computers to file income taxes Posted Mar 23, 2010 7:09 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> It's still embarassing for the country, though, because for such a person, the government already has all the information on the form and already has all the money, so really the government should send the form to the taxpayer instead of the other way around.
I'm pretty sure that they do do those computations, and if they don't match the ones on the form that the taxpayer sent in, they send a letter saying "you did it wrong, here's the correct answer, we'll just use that unless you argue".
In fact, a few years ago my filing got lost in the mail or something, and in the process of re-submitting I discovered I didn't have back-up copies of some of the documents like W-2's that *must* be included in the filing. It turns out that the solution to this problem is, you call up the IRS and they print out a copy, mail it to you, and then you mail it back.
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 18, 2010 22:31 UTC (Thu) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link] Brazil is a bit different. Your taxes are usually deducted automatically, but every year it is mandatory that you do an 'earnings declaration', in which you also declare spendings for things that the State should provide according to the Consitution (like education, or health), or things it allows you to get tax back for (some donations for instance). The problem is the brazilian government is now going to disallow paper declarations - all declarations will *have* to be submitted through the Internet, and the only (official) way of doing so is using a software _they_ provide, that is not Free Software. Thankfully, Alexandre Oliva has been championing a campaign to make the government aware of how stupid it is that they are not releasing the software as Free Software. Worth reading: http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/anuncio/2010-03-IRPF-Livre-2010.en
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 19, 2010 13:07 UTC (Fri) by henning (subscriber, #13406) [Link]
Here in germany its also not mandatory if you're a 'normal' employee. But many people do it anyway, as its possible to get some money back from the state this way.
As the tax laws are complicated and change a lot, there exists several applications (about 10 - 40 ) that help with the appliance, including tips and give suggestions.
The government provides a proprietary freeware (windows, wine) solution, but this is more or less only an electronic version of the paper version, it obviously doesn't contain that much helpful informations.. So i use for this purpose a small dedicated virtualbox instance.
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 19, 2010 13:32 UTC (Fri) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
The dutch government provides a gratis 3-platform application (on Linux it
uses the motif version of wxwidgets, either as a tarball or autopackage, 32 bits only) that does all the calculations, has lots of help and can automatically submit it. Even paid tax consultants do little more than enter fields in the application -- it's really quite good and helpful.
OpenTaxSolver solves taxes, openly Posted Mar 26, 2010 21:25 UTC (Fri) by i3839 (guest, #31386) [Link]
bin/ib2009ux uses GTK1.
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