Tax Time Again: Any Linux Solutions?

vettemph writes "As a Linux user, I've used Intuit's Turbo Tax On The Web in the past, but I don't like paying someone $20 to $30 to submit my forms. For the last few years I've been filling out the forms by hand and mailing them for $0.37 instead. Call me cheap. The IRS has a target of 80% of all taxpayers using e-file in the near future. Does anyone know where the 'free and open' solution is? Do we need to petition the IRS? Currently the IRS seems to be protecting their 'approved e-file partners'' profit margins in the name of a security layer. (I call shenanigans!)" So how will you be doing this year's taxes? I'd settle for a good PDF editor to neatly complete the IRS's PDF forms.

Comments

dual boot

[mslinux]

I'll take a break from Linux and boot into WinXP Home (which I bought a $89 OEM license for). I'll buy a copy of Turbo Tax from Walmart for $30 bucks and submit my return online.

It's not all or nothing. Windows is great for stuff like this. Don't let your ideology get in the way of cheap, efficient, widely avaiable software that'll make your life easier.

Even the French managed this!

[pp]

Living in France for a year in 2000-2001 I had to file for taxes there. They had this Java-based software (with instructions on using it on Linux) that did the trick. Well, I still had to use the paper output it generated, I think if you had Minitel or whatnot you could file online too. I was impressed :-)

Here in Finland they know how much you earn anyway since your employer tells them, so they send you a "tax proposal", which is correct for "normal" people and they don't have to do anything other than possibly pay more/get a refund if the deductions their employer made weren't accurate. Anything special (like profits made from sales of stocks and investment funds, assets etc.) you can, depending on your bank, print out the correct forms online which takes a few minutes, return those and that's it. Of course it can get complicated here too, but I manage in less then an hour :-)

Re:Amendments.

[chill]

Sorry, i dont acknowledge anything above #10.

So, you still practice slavery? (#13) How about not allowing women to vote (#19), or having your Governor appoint your Senators (#17), or lowering the voting age to 18 (#26)?

Hell, you HAVE to support #27 -- not allowing Congress to raise their own pay during a session!

Are you really sure you want G.W. Bush running for a third term? (#22)

-Charles

I don't expect one

[cookiepus]

I don't expect there to be a free Turbo Tax / Tax Cut equivalent. The idea of free software, as I understand it, anyway, is you make a program that you use, and you just give it to others because you think they may find it helpful.

This cannot happen with tax software. If you understand the tax code thoroughly, you're going to easily know exactly which forms to fill out in a specific year. And you would be an accountant, not a programmer.

Basically a programmer isn't going to sit down and write a program to do their taxes because by the time they know how to do their taxes, why would they write a program to do it?

This is why it takes a commercial entity to say "Ok, we have the know-how and the programmers to put this thing together, and we know people will buy it" -- god bless them because I've been using either Turbo Tax or Tax Cut for many of the past few years, and every time it has saved me money.

Certainly these companies can probably increase their sales a bit by making Linux binaries of their software, but don't expect them to give away the source to something they've invested so much $ in and depend on sales of to make money.

Coincidentally, I don't mean this post to be deragotary towards Open Source people, but am I wrong that no one is going to start a project for code that he himself isn't going to use?

Being US, the government knows everything

[twitter]

As a US citizen, I can say the same things.

All my earnings are reported, all my tax breaks pre-calculculated, interest reported by the banks. Only thing I have to add are tax deductible donations like Red Cross stuff.

It could Take me about 15 seconds to do my taxes.

I have NO privacy in my life, but it is not easy.

Really, Uncle Sam gets reports from everyone and "voluntary compliance" is a fiction. Even charities have forms to fill out.

My wife thinks they should have a web site that has the forms filled out and a little button, "I agree" or "make changes". The I agree button would take all of no seconds to push and Uncle Sam knows where my money is, so the next screen should present payment options. Make changes should let you enter things they might not know about, which would be rare, or let you file a complaint that a human being actually has to look at.

Re:Taxes? Huh!

[velo_mike]

Here in Ireland (and in the rest of the EU) your tax is automatically taken out of your paycheck and you don't need to worry about filling in tax returns every year unless you run a business It seems bizarre to me (and the 350 million other Europeans) that all you American folk still have to fill in your own tax returns; surely our way is better?

Huh? Last time I checked France was a huge part of the EU and while it may seem bizarre to you and your 4 million countryment, I filed just as cryptic tax returns for them over the last 3 years. Guess what, they withhold for Social Security but not Income tax, meaning I wrote a bloody huge check four times every year to pay the tax man.

As far as "your way being better", I'd much rather have everyone write a check to the government every year, maybe that would finally spur the revolution we need. When you don't see it, except as a digit on a check, the tax seems reasonable. Let people write a check for 20% of their earnings and see how fast fiscal conservatives get elected.

While I'm at it, every time I'm in the US something I get really pissed off at is that shops are allowed to advertise a basic tax-exclusive price on goods. Here in the EU it's law that shops have to advertise a VAT-inclusive tax so that when you get to the counter you pay the advertised price, not the price plus 10-20% sales tax. How do you guys put up with that?

How do you put up with paying a 20% tax, in addition to confiscatory rates for social security, income, and property tax? Again, if it were buried in the price, I'm sure we'd gladly pay but since it's obvious, it helps keep government spending down.