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So I guess you are going to tell me HL Mencken, Walter Cronkite, etc, etc, aren't journalists? Right. I think just about everyone is going to disagree with 'your' definition on that one.

Before you go yelling once again that Cronkite has a school named after him. Yes, he does. That doesn't mean he want to school. Now you are going to yell about all his degrees. They are all honorary degrees. He NEVER went to school for them. Link: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/cronkite wal/cronkitewal.htm

"WALTER CRONKITE. Born in St. Joseph's, Missouri, U.S.A., 4 November 1916. Attended University of Texas, 1933-35. Married: Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, 1940; three children. Newswriter and editor, Scripps-Howard, also for United Press, Houston, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Dallas, Austin, and El Paso, Texas; and New York City; United Press war correspondent, 1942-45, foreign correspondent, reopening bureaus in Amsterdam, Brussels; chief correspondent, Nuremberg war crimes trials, bureau manager, Moscow, 1946-48, manager and contributor, 1948-49, CBS-News correspondent, 1950-81, special correspondent, since 1981; managing editor, CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, 1962-81. Honorary degrees: American International College; Harvard University; LL.D., Rollins College, Bucknell University, Syracuse University; L.H.D., Ohio State University. Member: Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (president, national academy, New York chapter, 1959, Governor's Award, 1979); Association Radio News Analysts. Recipient: several Emmy Awards; Peabody Awards, 1962 and 1981; William A. White Award for journalistic merit, 1969; George Polk Journalism Award, 1971; Gold Medal, International Radio and Television Society, 1974; Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award in Broadcast Journalism, 1978 and 1981; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1981."

He started college, but never finished it. He dropped out of college in his junior year, to take a job as a full-time reporter for The Houston Press.

Link:http://www.nndb.com/people/313/000022247/

"High School: San Jacinto High School, Houston, TX (1933)"

"University: University of Texas at Austin (no degree)"

Got proof he did? Let's see your sources.

Carpentry also doesn't compare to being a doctor, yet you can't get insurance on a new house unless your carpenters are bonded and licensed. If you don't believe me, call a contractor and ask.

My uncle built his own home. He has insurance. You can get insurance if you had the house well inspected during the building process and look around for insurance companies. Many insurance companies don't want to assume the risk of insuring a house with unknown quality of workmanship. The insurance company is the one who decides what risks they want to take or not. The government is not involved, and you don't have to be a bonded/licensed carpenter to build a house in most jurisdictions (some local zoning regulations may insist, but those are strange local regs, not national laws or regulations). You just need to get everything inspected. Don't believe it? http://apps.irs.gov/businesses/page/0,,id=7006,00. html "The license/registration requirements for carpenters and their business entities (that is, sole proprietorship, joint venture, partnership, or corporation) vary from state to state. Most states, however, do require those in the carpentry/framing business to register or obtain a license." Most states require a license if you are going to do it for a business. Others don't. There is no national law for it.

In order to submit IRS returns electronically, the software developer and/or the agency submitting the returns has to be an authorized E-File provider. (Read that, it's chock full of insightful information on this subject, as is this one.) When you use TurboTax, you don't end up submitting directly to the IRS, but via TurboTax's systems as a middleman, which passes your return along to the IRS via "e-file transmitters".

Furthermore, you also have to get approval from every state you want to be able to support state returns for. 1, 2, 3

Which is, no doubt, why there aren't a lot more tax software options.

In the unlikely scenario that an open source project received this approval, the trusted endpoint problem would wreak havoc with its success.

Such a project would have to function like a foundation, with its own online middleman service to process the returns through. (Or, perhaps more ambitiously, operate its own e-file Transmitter.)

Anyway, I'm a big fan of TurboTax for the Web. I don't need to download anything, or worry about upgrading each year, and the cost is somewhat dependent on the complexity of my return and the added features I want, so I don't end up buying a shrink-wrapped flat-rate option that I end up underusing.

In order to submit IRS returns electronically, the software developer and/or the agency submitting the returns has to be an authorized E-File provider. (Read that, it's chock full of insightful information on this subject, as is this one.) When you use TurboTax, you don't end up submitting directly to the IRS, but via TurboTax's systems as a middleman, which passes your return along to the IRS via "e-file transmitters".

Furthermore, you also have to get approval from every state you want to be able to support state returns for. 1, 2, 3

Which is, no doubt, why there aren't a lot more tax software options.

In the unlikely scenario that an open source project received this approval, the trusted endpoint problem would wreak havoc with its success.

Such a project would have to function like a foundation, with its own online middleman service to process the returns through. (Or, perhaps more ambitiously, operate its own e-file Transmitter.)

Anyway, I'm a big fan of TurboTax for the Web. I don't need to download anything, or worry about upgrading each year, and the cost is somewhat dependent on the complexity of my return and the added features I want, so I don't end up buying a shrink-wrapped flat-rate option that I end up underusing.

Go to the IRS website and use one of the online tax filing services for free. You still have to pay for the State & Local e-file, but that's like $20.

The IRS has teamed with some companies to give you free (as in beer) tax filing. See for yourself at the IRS website. Link: here

I'm not sure if you can go back farther than that.

yes you can (generally up to 3 years if you are getting a refund from an old tax return)

If you think you are owed money from an old return don't hesitate to amend your return!

If you have an emergency or aren't sure of some numbers, file your return this year quickly, using numbers in the IRS's favor, and then go back and amend it later with correct numbers.

You can also request an extension for those situations.

The college I work for participates in VITA/TCE (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance/Tax Counseling for the Elderly) program. The public can show up and have their taxes done for free as long as it's a typical 1040 regular or EZ type of return. Check with the IRS or your local college for more info. This is the second year that I've used it, and I've been very satisfied. They even e-filed it for me.

There are already FREE (BEER) solutions to e-filing your taxes for nearly everyone in nearly every state. No OSS person is going to take on the liability or complexity of the US tax code for "fun", especially when the FREE (BEER) solutions work so well and there are plenty of better projects to which you can devote your limited time.

The federal government has forms online and they also have a "Free File" for eligible taxpayers which is nearly everybody. Check out www.irs.gov for the site and a link to a variety of supported vendors who will e-file you for free using web-based forms.

I like www.taxact.com -- they are among the federal "Free File" vendors so you can use them for free and have the Fed gov't pay for it - just make sure you start at the www.irs.gov website or you'll have to pay for it. You can file the state with TaxAct for about $10 more but realize that MOST states (like IL where I live) have online FREE tax filing as well at their state websites.

However, if you're like me and want to do it at home instead of on the web for free, you can purchase TaxAct's fed and state for use at home for $20. Their software is very easy to use and asks you simple questionaire to make sure you get all your deductions. Additionally, TaxAct isn't as bloated and is not filled with crapware (like nasty DRM that writes to your root sector on your HD) like the other major vendors have done in the past. I don't work for or have any relation to taxact, but I do like them compared to other products and I would recommend them for people who want the actual program at home versus the FREE (BEER) solutions above.

The free online products allow you to file your taxes, guarantee accuracy of computations (not accuracy of what you enter OF COURSE!), print out your taxes for a personal copy, and verify their online filing. If you need a program, you can spend $20 for a fully guaranteed tax suite and save over the $175 or $69.99 charges mentioned in the post.

I was listening to NPR a while ago and they were talking about how the IRS had some deal going on that you could do electronic filing for free. You can find all their free stuff here. As for sub7, I think you might want to return that copy of Turbo Tax and check this out. Turbo Tax Premier is only $29.99 from that site. Unless I'm missing something, there's no advantage to buying the software directly and there's definitely no advantage to buying the software at all unless your state has income tax, too.

You should consider using the IRS Withholding Calculator. It will help eliminate that "loan" to the IRS.

Why pay at all? If you live in a state with no income tax, go to IRS.gov and then select Turbo Tax for the web. The Federal income tax filing at least will be completely free. I live in WA and paid nothing to use the software.

For Mac users, MacInTouch has info about these services as well as info about US and Canadian tax software for the Mac.

For Mac users, MacInTouch has info about these services as well as info about US and Canadian tax software for the Mac.

Sure it's not desktop software, but if you have the right browser, many sites allow you to do your taxes for free (at least federal, they've recently been charging a small sum for state).

Even the IRS posts free tax filing sites. Some have income restrictions, but most don't. (Your H&R Block is on there too).

But seriously, if you have a very complex living situation (non college-student-who-works-at-McDonalds, and the like), it's probably better to get yours prepared by a professional. They usually think of deductions you would never come up with even if you had a nice software suite... and the extra deductions almost always pay for the preparation fee. I'm not saying everyone should, but I know many people who swear by getting their taxes done by a pro.

No really...everyone qualifies.

http://www.taxfreedom.com/

Everyone else does not have to pay to do the online thing. In fact, for Federal no one has to pay. For state, many people can do their state taxes online for free too.

http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp

If you pay to do your taxes online, you're getting ripped off!

Do your taxes for free! Follow the "free file" link from the IRS web site. There are a lot of companies that give you what you need (do it online, efile, direct deposit) without costing you a penny.

(I heard this was a deal that the IRS struck with the private sector. Instead of them rolling their own online app and putting them all out of business, they have to offer this free "back door.")

Ummm, no.

http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?

And if you're too rich to qualify for any of those, then you're too rich to bitch.

Visit the IRS's website. They list a number of places which offer free tax preparation. Sometimes there are restrictions depending on your state of residence or your level of income, but many are free without restrictions. You'll be able to E-File and get your refund direct deposited to your bank account. You'll probably still have to pony up for filing state income taxes though.

I've been using TurboTax on the web through taxfreedom.com for years without complaint.

P.S. Some of these services are only free if you visit their site through the irs.gov link!

Open Tax Solver is the only F/OSS tax program worth mentioning. It is better than doing it by hand but (if you are used to handholding from TaxCut, TurboTax, and similar products) you will need to be ready for a shock. It is under active development & started out as merely a simple calculator. You would feed in a text file of what numbers you would put on which lines & it would spit out what to put on all of the other lines. So you still need to be familiar with how to do your taxes by hand--you just don't need to have a calculator when you do this. The advantage of this is that it is very flexible--the same program can and is being used for state and other taxes than the US Federal 1040. The disadvantage, of course, is that you need to know a little something & be able to edit that text file.

Someone has since developed a GUI for it, but it is still quite new & somewhat untested. I haven't a clue if the GUI is as flexible as the CLI program.

The output is a textfile. They suggest you sit down with the text file open & fill out a fillable PDF form by hand. Acroread 7 supposedly supports filling in form data from a text file, so that will be the next big improvement to OTS. The catch is you still have to print out the form & mail it in. I don't know how likely efile will be--just as with the open source personal finance programs downloading bank statements, there is generally a lack of information sharing unless you are Intuit or H&R Block.

Don't like this? Then use a free (as in beer) web service through freefile. They list dozens of sites where you can complete and efile federal and some state taxes. Most allow you to keep a PDF of the filed forms for your own records or for a snailmail submission.

Free File

is free as in beer good enough?

My wife pointed out that you can go to the IRS.gov FREE FILE page you can file through H&R Block or TurboTax online for free.

"Free federal online tax preparation and e-filing for all taxpayers. No restrictions. Everyone qualifies."

Some free filings do have restrictions, but some do not. If you can't get free as in speech (with taxes, you won't) you might as well get free as in beer.

* If you go to the tax prep sites directly, you may not be able to get the same offer. You have to go through the IRS site.

Why spend any money at all? Go to the IRS's Free File page, and pick from a number of online entities who provide free tax preparation and e-file. For a lot of them (including H&R Block) there are no restrictions, and everyone qualifies. Sure, it isn't an Open Source (which will likely never happen anyway), but it also isn't $70 bucks either.

Actually the IRS provides several programs that will help you out in their Free file section. It's not open source but it is free. http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?/

Agreed. Just go to www.irs.gov and download the PDFs. You can get the forms and the instructions. The forms are fill-in so you can just type in your numbers. When you are done print and sign. It took me longer then the parent poster, it actually took me about a day to do Federal and State. When I was done I printed, my wife and i signed and I mailed them in. Why pay to e-file when I can mail them for less then a $1 each!?!? That's what really gets me about taxes...it costs the Govnmt quite a bit less if you e-file but they charge you to do so! i'll mail them and make them spend more the process my taxes until they make e-file free.

Intuit pretty much owns the the tax software market these days. But if your taxes are not too complicated, I think the IRS has some ways to file online or via telephone. It's not OS but it does get the job done.

http://www.irs.gov/

I use this (IRS Form 1040, pdf format), this (IRS Form 1040 instructions, pdf format), and XCalc. Seems to work fine for me.

I use this (IRS Form 1040, pdf format), this (IRS Form 1040 instructions, pdf format), and XCalc. Seems to work fine for me.

The tax code is updated every year.

Unless you're looking at a fairly trivial tax calculator, trying to write and maintain an Open Source, Community-Driven tax program would be a positively Herculean undertaking. It'd dwarf the Mozilla and Apache projects. If you are looking at a fairly simple tax program, then you can probably wrap your taxes up by hand in the time it takes to download, install, and do your taxes on your PC.

What's more, code errors and oversights can mean audits, overpayments, smaller returns and penalties for your users.

Do you think it's bad that PayMaxx shows people's personal information on the web? Of course it is. But how about if you get it legally from the IRS instead?

Sure is one all-powerful form that controls everything: form hj-8452-lk-1, "Request to control issuance of forms."

I think you're confused. The correct form is 1040.

The second link, "stories," should have been called "If you've been living in a bubble for the past 30 years, this will bring you up to speed." Seriously. The only thing I've seen more targeted at morons is the IRS Tax Return FAQ.

Used to do this all the time for the farmers that I did taxes for. They thought I was helping them cheat the government; but it's perfectly legal.

The IRS is way ahead of you, that's what ITINs and ATINs are for.

You cannot "opt out" of a Taxpayer Indentification number if you have any dealing with the IRS (who must file). If you are eligible for a Social Security Number, it must be that. You can only get an ITIN or ATIN in a few limited situations (usually foreigners). So while it is technically true that some people may not be required to have an SSN, you would pretty much have to be a non-dependent (since you need an SSN for others to claim you) living at home and making very little money, or a homeless difter.

You cannot "opt out" of a Taxpayer Indentification number if you have any dealing with the IRS (who must file). If you are eligible for a Social Security Number, it must be that. You can only get an ITIN or ATIN in a few limited situations (usually foreigners). So while it is technically true that some people may not be required to have an SSN, you would pretty much have to be a non-dependent (since you need an SSN for others to claim you) living at home and making very little money, or a homeless difter.

one company tried getting my SS# so they could list me as an employee and run taxes on me, etc. I told them no way...they can cut me a check to my business. They wanted that EIN number - again no way. B2B they only need your business name (only one business per state with that name allowed anyhow).

For your information, they are legally required to file a 1099 with the IRS covering all payments that they made to you in any year where the total exceeded $600. To file that 1099 they need either your SSN if you're an individual/dba, or your EIN if you're a corporation. Its not just standard practice, its the law.

And they can demand that you provide your EIN (TIN) via the handy-dandy W-9, so why not save yourself the hassle?

It's not illegal, but the person recieving the services has to report it as income and it is taxed at fair market value.

I.R.S.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I forgot to mention. For some reason no one I know has ever heard of this, even some tax preparers.

If you are single, make under $25,000, and weren't a full-time student 5 or more months out of the year, you can get a tax credit (not a deduction) for contributing to a retirement account, even a Roth IRA. The credit will also be on top of any traditional IRA deduction you got. It's called the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit. The IRS has information on it here and the form (8880) is here.

Hopefully this will save some slashdotter some money. Check it out. I was able to take it last year, since I graduated in February and took a few months off before starting work so I didn't go over the income limit.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I forgot to mention. For some reason no one I know has ever heard of this, even some tax preparers.

If you are single, make under $25,000, and weren't a full-time student 5 or more months out of the year, you can get a tax credit (not a deduction) for contributing to a retirement account, even a Roth IRA. The credit will also be on top of any traditional IRA deduction you got. It's called the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit. The IRS has information on it here and the form (8880) is here.

Hopefully this will save some slashdotter some money. Check it out. I was able to take it last year, since I graduated in February and took a few months off before starting work so I didn't go over the income limit.

Sorry for any confusion caused by my post, but there are income limits for Roth IRA contributions as well. Single filers can't contribute to a Roth IRA if their AGI is more than $110,000, no matter whether your employer provides a retirement plan or not -- see here.

I'm just not anywhere close to that income, so I wasn't really aware of it.

A traditional IRA is tax deductible for the year you make the contribution.

Not if you have a retirement plan such as a 401(k) through your employer and your AGI is above a certain threshold. For instance, single filers covered by a retirement plan through their employer who have an AGI above $55,000 cannot take any deduction on contributions to a traditional IRA, and those with an AGI between $45,000 and $55,000 can only take a partial deduction. See here for more info.

You can still contribute to a Roth IRA as much as you want without any loss of benefits, however. And, of course, any contributions you make to a traditional IRA will still grow tax-deferred; you're just losing the up-front tax benefit (but, given the existence of Roth IRAs, why on earth would you still contribute to a traditional IRA if you weren't going to get the deduction?)

Me too. Frankly, I'd be happy to let them keep the money they have already sucked out of me if I could just quit paying in.

The most amusing part is there is NO federal law requiring you to have an SSN check this out IRS

Straight from the IRS website :

"There is no federal law administered by any federal agency which prohibits the hiring of a person based solely on the fact that the person does not have a Social Security Number (SSN). Similarly, there is no federal law which prohibits the making of a payment to a person based solely on the fact that the person does not have an SSN."

Look for a federal law requiring you to get a SSN, there is NONE. Press the SS administration for the law and they will admit (after much arm twisting) that no such law exists. So in theory it is voluntary. But try to get ANY kind of policy or procedure to withdraw yourself from SS. It does not exist.

The US system already accomplishes most of what you've explained. The specs aren't XML, but they could easily be converted into XML. Just sprinkle in a few < and > (not that I think this will simplify things, but some people are dead set against anything other than XML). Seriously, if XML was the magic bullet, it'd be done by now. I could convert the specs into XML in a matter of days.

The problem is, if all you implement is the raw spec, you're left with hundreds of forms and thousands of fields. It wouldn't be very useful to anyone not intimately familiar with what information goes where.

The even have a PDF where they label the PDF with the field numbers used on it. Now that's pretty useful, but you've still gotta worry about all the "fill in the blank" options. As one example of many, "prisoner earned income" isn't listed on the standard 1040 form, because there aren't all that many people who have it. On standard tax forms you write it in (I think it goes under other income, but really I don't remember).

It's tedious little things like that which make writing the software so difficult. An automatic script could do a lot of the work, but the 1040 alone has 275 fields in it.

It's out there, and the only open source software I know of that tried to do it is the software I've written, and I gave up. I think eventually there will be free software to do it, and I'm surprised there isn't already, but AFAIK there's not any work currently being done on it.

See http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/providers/article/0,,id =97982,00.html for the specs.

In early times, tax collectors were brutes that went around... collecting taxes from people. This hasn't changed too much over time.

The US (and several other countries) adopted a voluntary tax filing system where people would voluntarily file and pay their taxes, thus eliminating the need to send out tax collectors to the entire population. However, they still will send out tax collectors to the percentage of the population that don't voluntarily file and pay taxes.

Of course, there is a huge number of people that just don't appear on their list, and the irs can wait 3 years (or more) of non-filing before they start thinking about sending someone out.

BTW, this kind of scheme has been around for a long time and if you're getting away with not paying for now, good on you. Maybe they'll catch up with you, maybe they won't. I won't even argue about if you're completely right or wrong. However, unless you've got the money to fend off court action from the IRS, I think you're a sitting duck. Sure, some people have won cases in the past, but the IRS hasn't stopped taking people to court over past due taxes, and they've won quite a few cases themselves. I can imagine that the court costs alone are more than enough to offset my tax savings.

Actually, I haven't "paid" taxes in several years... my business deductions have always put my tax owed in the negative. That will probably change in the next year or so as business is picking up, but I consider that a Good Thing(tm).

That's my personal opinion on the requirement to pay taxes (I had researched this a few years ago when I came across the idea of not paying taxes), but here's what the IRS has compiled on the matter.

You don't need a PDF editor to fill in the forms electronically. Adobe's reader (I've only tried the Windows version; not sure about the Linux version) will let you type in the fields and save and print the results.

You can get the forms at http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/lists/0,,id=97817,00. html.

I wouldn't deduct most of what you listed (look at pub 529)

Which you can do here

There is a big gap between
young and don't make much money
and
Student loans, home loan, children, business expenses, professional education, healthcare expenses, donations to the Goodwill, etc.
I think you are grossly over estimating the amount of people that would benefit from itemizing.
I would guess the major issue to itemize and not is your mortgage interest. You would have to have some serious deductions (more then you mentioned above) to benefit from itemizing without it. An example being the healthcare expenses you referenced. You can only start to deduct them when they exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. That means for $60K ADI, you would need $4500 of out of pocket expenses just to start that benefit. If your health insurance is paid by your employer pre-tax (you are not taxed for the monthly premium amount that you pay - which most are), you can forget your monthly premium payment costs as being added in there (see IRS pub502 page 7 left column). Considering the standard deduction for married filing jointly is $9700 this year, you'd have to beat that with itemized deductions to benefit. Don't get me wrong, figure it out both ways and do hope for miracles.

That out of the way, there have been two big assertions made about the way e-file works, with varying degrees of veracity. I will address them each in turn.

Assertion 1.The IRS is prohibited by law from offering a free efile package (either web-based or PC based)

Sort of: This is a decision that is more or less up to Messers Bush and Snow, not Everson. In general, the US goverment doesn't like to compete against private industry based on two predictions about the goverment product:

• It would suck at first.
• Everyone would use it anyway, and so it would suck forever.

Assertion 2.Lobbyists have kept a Free and Open solution from being offered by keeping the specifications secret and only allowing evil corporations to know how to submit returns.

False: The steps and specs are carefully hidden away in the brightly colored Pub 3112(pdf) and others, such as the equally shiny Pub 1345 (pdf)(The actual specs for the 1040 are in the dead-tree-only Pub 1346)

Exercise for the reader:

1. Get some friends together and write a tax preparation package in whatever language and whatever license you want (No extra credit given for ironically titled packages written in Malbolge or Brainf--- and distributed under the new X11 License). Found an LLC under the laws of your state. File Forms 8832 and 2553 with the IRS to be recognized as a Subchapter S Corporation (as a measure to avoid the hassles and shared liabilities of being a partnership).
2. Figure out the mysterious Step 2 (Hint: Getting recognized as an ERO, and coming up with a business model are likely involved)
3. Profit!

Note: If you have an unwavering faith in the idea that the IRS is evil, then you misunderstand. The IRS is a bureau. As a whole, the Service has absolutely no emotional investment in being either kind or unkind to the taxpayer. Everything the IRS does is prescribed in 26 USC by the Congress. If the law says charge a penalty, we charge it. If the law says grant credit interest on late refunds, we grant it. If the law required that each US Citizen send us a chicken in lieu of a 1040 (it doesn't), then we'd collect 'em. All the same to us.

That out of the way, there have been two big assertions made about the way e-file works, with varying degrees of veracity. I will address them each in turn.

Assertion 1.The IRS is prohibited by law from offering a free efile package (either web-based or PC based)

Sort of: This is a decision that is more or less up to Messers Bush and Snow, not Everson. In general, the US goverment doesn't like to compete against private industry based on two predictions about the goverment product:

• It would suck at first.
• Everyone would use it anyway, and so it would suck forever.

Assertion 2.Lobbyists have kept a Free and Open solution from being offered by keeping the specifications secret and only allowing evil corporations to know how to submit returns.

False: The steps and specs are carefully hidden away in the brightly colored Pub 3112(pdf) and others, such as the equally shiny Pub 1345 (pdf)(The actual specs for the 1040 are in the dead-tree-only Pub 1346)

Exercise for the reader:

1. Get some friends together and write a tax preparation package in whatever language and whatever license you want (No extra credit given for ironically titled packages written in Malbolge or Brainf--- and distributed under the new X11 License). Found an LLC under the laws of your state. File Forms 8832 and 2553 with the IRS to be recognized as a Subchapter S Corporation (as a measure to avoid the hassles and shared liabilities of being a partnership).
2. Figure out the mysterious Step 2 (Hint: Getting recognized as an ERO, and coming up with a business model are likely involved)
3. Profit!

Note: If you have an unwavering faith in the idea that the IRS is evil, then you misunderstand. The IRS is a bureau. As a whole, the Service has absolutely no emotional investment in being either kind or unkind to the taxpayer. Everything the IRS does is prescribed in 26 USC by the Congress. If the law says charge a penalty, we charge it. If the law says grant credit interest on late refunds, we grant it. If the law required that each US Citizen send us a chicken in lieu of a 1040 (it doesn't), then we'd collect 'em. All the same to us.

That out of the way, there have been two big assertions made about the way e-file works, with varying degrees of veracity. I will address them each in turn.

Assertion 1.The IRS is prohibited by law from offering a free efile package (either web-based or PC based)

Sort of: This is a decision that is more or less up to Messers Bush and Snow, not Everson. In general, the US goverment doesn't like to compete against private industry based on two predictions about the goverment product:

• It would suck at first.
• Everyone would use it anyway, and so it would suck forever.

Assertion 2.Lobbyists have kept a Free and Open solution from being offered by keeping the specifications secret and only allowing evil corporations to know how to submit returns.

False: The steps and specs are carefully hidden away in the brightly colored Pub 3112(pdf) and others, such as the equally shiny Pub 1345 (pdf)(The actual specs for the 1040 are in the dead-tree-only Pub 1346)

Exercise for the reader:

1. Get some friends together and write a tax preparation package in whatever language and whatever license you want (No extra credit given for ironically titled packages written in Malbolge or Brainf--- and distributed under the new X11 License). Found an LLC under the laws of your state. File Forms 8832 and 2553 with the IRS to be recognized as a Subchapter S Corporation (as a measure to avoid the hassles and shared liabilities of being a partnership).
2. Figure out the mysterious Step 2 (Hint: Getting recognized as an ERO, and coming up with a business model are likely involved)
3. Profit!

Note: If you have an unwavering faith in the idea that the IRS is evil, then you misunderstand. The IRS is a bureau. As a whole, the Service has absolutely no emotional investment in being either kind or unkind to the taxpayer. Everything the IRS does is prescribed in 26 USC by the Congress. If the law says charge a penalty, we charge it. If the law says grant credit interest on late refunds, we grant it. If the law required that each US Citizen send us a chicken in lieu of a 1040 (it doesn't), then we'd collect 'em. All the same to us.