Swiss Tax Office distributes Mozilla and OpenOffice

David Gerard writes "From Heise (via Mozillazine: taxpayers in the Swiss canton of Geneva are being given a CD with a French version of Mozilla 1.2.1, OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 and tax program GEtax 2002. Rough English translation from Google." This strikes me as a really cool idea. I already get the cards that tell me to file online rather than fill out paper forms, but it still forces me to buy tax software every year.

Comments

Terrific!

[Azureflare]

This is a step that should be made be more governments, to ease the tax process for people who don't want to spend money for a tax program. Jeez, we have to pay the taxes, why do we have to pay for a tax program to pay the taxes??

Tax office... Hrmm

[slashhax0r]

I'd rather see governments switching to open source and either using the saved dollars for something ie: education/heathcare, or just give us some tax rebates.. Neat idea though. P.s. fp?

IRS and corporate welfare

[kkirk007]

The IRS this year was considering releasing its own tax software, available for free. Then the major tax software distributors (TurboTax, TaxCut, TaxAct, etc) cried foul..."if you release an electronic 1040 for free we'll go out of business!" and so instead the IRS struck an accord with them that they would give away their product to people with incomes under $30K /year.

Since when was the IRS responsible to the software companies to keep their revenue stream going, rather than providing a useful tax service to the public?

Re:IRS and corporate welfare

[jaaron]

Actually, it's a tricky situation because you're talking about the line between the government and the market. Should the government compete or even enter areas of the private sector where firms are currently conducting activities? In some cases, it might make sense, but it's not something that should be happening often or you end up with a bloated government that runs and produces everything.

Taking this to extremes (forgive me for a moment), but if the government will provide free (or low cost) tax software, why not give me free or low cost online access so I can file online? And why not give me a computer too. And hey, I need an operating system for the darn thing. Oh, and throw in a printer while your at it. Perhaps this seems silly, but when you deal with public services, you have to consider the long term consequences these trends can begin. Bloated services often start lean and mean and well intentioned.

Generally, in any case that the private sector is offering a viable product, then the government shouldn't come in and replace them. Now the case of tax software is a little odd since that market is essentially feeding off of the tax service the government offers to begin with. One could also argue that the increased competition of the government might help the situation by forcing the current private firms to better their service. In some markets like education and mail/package delivery such competition works.

My point here is that just because some nation starts offering open source tax software doesn't mean it's a great idea for the US. There are pros and cons that should be weighed.

Why not simplify so no software is necessary?

[The Mutant]

IMHO this misses the fundamental problem; tax codes in most countries are just too damn complex.

In the United States they've managed to create such a complicated system that with few exceptions, the services of a professional - or the use of sophistcated and costly software - are necessary. This is ridiculous!

My situation is a little bit more complicated than most since I'm American and live in London. Last year my US tax return alone was 88 pages! Unbelievable.

And yeah, I have to use an accounting firm to complete my return even though I've got a Masters in Finance. The cost of an honest mistake discovered years later would be far too high for me to risk it.

So I get to pay KMPG about two thousand Pounds to complete my US and UK tax returns. Great.

What's REALLY interesting about it...

[koi88]

... is that OSS is distributed together with the tax software and that every adult gets a copy.

This way many people who are often too "lazy" to download new software and stick with their included Internet Explorer can try a different browser.

Same with OpenOffice: I know a lot of people who are CONVINCED that there is no alternative to MS Office... I'm sure many will give it a try-- in the end it means you can save a lot of money...

ps: Hey! I posted this story yesterday, but it was rejected... I know, don't complain...