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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.
Just bought the Turbo Tax Deluxe from the local Sam's Club. Decent price, and I'll have my taxes done by the end of the weekend. The only thing that burns me is the "electronic filing fees". Just call them what they are (profit) and be done with it.
He who laughs last is at 300 baud.
Lots of folks are eligilbe for free filing using web based tools. It was quick and easy for me last year.
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http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.
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.
Takes me about 15 seconds to do my taxes.
I have NO privacy in my life, but it sure is easy.
Then it's probably a very cosy relationship between the tax accounting software companies and the Inland Revenue Service. They pay ahem ... "subscription charges" for the documentation and specifications, the tax accounting software companies get to call their software "fully IR/IRS compliant".
Is it time to blow the whistle on the scam by asking for specs without the fees? Damn right it is. Will they listen? Not unless you can get some mainstream media behind you.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
I've worked 2.5 years at a large tax-accounting software company. I have worked in other areas of programming for another ten years.
Your post assumes that there can be some rational sense to US taxes. The IRS doesn't work that way. US taxes are an ever-changing morass of semi-sensible, irrational IRS rules, constantly attempting to beat back tax abuses. It took a large army of accountants to keep up with each year's changes.
There is very little residual value in one year's tax software into the next year. Give it up, pay someone a measly few bucks for canning their expertise on a CD so that you can save hours and dollars yourself.
Shouldn't the IRS really put it's enormous numnber of rules into a machine format for us? Then, use the same tax software each each, with the new IRS rules. Separate the constantly changing rules from the application itself With rules in a common format, a rule engine can get all the info it needs to complete the task in most cases. It's the Internal Revenue SERVICE. They least they can do is make following the rules easy for us.
I've used Turbo Tax for years for a rather complex set of tax forms (A, C, F, and others). What I'm paying for is time savings, keeping the forms and calculations up to date (they are slightly different every year), and a guarantee. If TT screws up my calculations and I pay the wrong amount, Intuit has some responsibility. An OSS solution fir a once a year thing that changes significantly every year, and the failure (even minor calculation bugs) could cost you lots of money or in the worst case, jail time. Think I'll drop the $20.00. OTOH, if this is important to you, you could always start a new project on SourceForge.
"Why would he install another OS just for taxes?"
Actually he said to install Windows to broaden the availability of software to you. For some strange reason, most of Slashdot doesn't understand the idea that having both Linux and Windows around means you can do more stuff than just having either one of them up and running.
"Derp de derp."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It may be cheap and easy but it might not make my life easier. Most non free companies have a way of making things miserable for their users and I refuse to fund them.
It was turbo tax's mistaken use of the master boot record for copy protection that put a freeze on any new non free software installation. I don't want tax time to wipe out grub for me. This also rules out using something like crossover office. While it might be easy to repair the damage, I refuse to pay money to be screwed that way or others.
The bottom line is that if I don't trust the bastards with my hardware, why should I trust them with tax records? My bank already sold me out so that my snail mailbox is flooded with Mortage applications. They sent me a form that I have to snail mail back with a signature to opt out of their spam program. What turds. A company that writes out to my MBR is liable to be as fast and lose with my tax information.
My ideology is firmly based in the practical. It does not hurt me to do my taxes by hand and by doing so I avoid many other problems. My avoidance of Windoze has saved me countless hours of upkeep that I used to spend due to bugs, worms and all of it was compounded by stupid shit like the registry. It's problems like this that free software is made to avoid. Non free software is designed to exert control over you and that control almost always spells more hassle than it's worth.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
IANAAccountant, but I used to be, and to the best of my knowledge, it is still the case that expenses you incur in the preparation of your tax return are deductable. So if you have to shell out $35 for a tax package (and $89 for an o/s to run it, and $150 for a harddrive upon which to install that o/s) then as long as you itemise, and keep your receipts, what's the problem?
Not that deductability matters in small increments like that. A hundred and thirty bucks in software is meaningless for anyone who deducts enough to get over the "standard deduction". It is, after all, just a deduction in income; you save maybe twenty, maybe thirty bucks off your tax bill.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
If you have any kind of home-based business, it's perfectly safe to deduct the cost of a computer through Section 179 of the tax code. (In English, that simply means that you deduct the money you pay for the computer instead of spreading the deduction over your years of ownership, as larger businesses have to do).
If you're doing any form of computer consulting and can book even fairly minimal revenue, the deduction is not generally questioned. Of course if you're working for an employer only you generally can't do it.
Hope that helps. I am not a lawyer or tax advisor; check your tax advisor or book for details, etc.
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You don't need to have a business. If you use the computer in any way for work, you can deduct it.
That includes being on-call and having to log in from home, authoring a book, computer training, computer certifications, and so on.
You can also deduct web hosting fees (you test code there to make sure you've learned what you've been studying), ISP fees (you have to have an internet account to log in to work with the computer you're deducting) and more.
Disclaimer: I'm not an attorney or tax preparer, I just have a damn good financial planner and tax preparer. I've been deducting everything related to my computer for years. I've also been deducting my vacations because wherever I go, I drop off a couple resumes and get some business cards and call it "job hunting".
Magazine subscriptions and book costs related to computers (or your work period if your work isn't
I.T.) can also be deducted.
can use the basic 1040 -- don't own a business, take standard deduction
./ is a sizable number of people), you can usually save a ton of money by doing itemized deductions. Of course, it takes time to figure out the itemized deductions.
You should be very careful about using the 1040-EZ form. Unless you are young and don't make much money (which on
Myself, I use a tax accountant to do my taxes (Local shop with a good reputation). We pay her $300, and she typically finds a more then a thousand dollars worth of deductions that we missed when we practiced on our own (even with TurboTax). Student loans, home loan, children, business expenses, professional education, healthcare expenses, donations to the Goodwill, etc. can really add up. Every year the tax rules change, and can't keep up on all the best loopholes.
Plus, she's gives us financial advice. I was employeed for a year, and we ran up too much debt. Last year we consolidated our Credit Card loans & some professional education loans into a Home Equity Line of Credit. Not only are the rates lower (4% vs 15% for the Credit Cards), but our payments are now tax deductable.
Taxes are such a fucking game.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
That's really cool. Something like that would definitely be implementable over here for state tax returns. Maybe (especially in a state such as California, which is in a huge budgetary crisis) actually collecting the taxes they have at the current rate would mean, for instance, less cuts in services. I can't see it happening very soon on the federal level though. For one, the scale is just too vast, which is why there are so many 3rd parties involved. Second, when you buy Turbotax you're basically buying their expertise, and I don't think a community OSS project will have that kind of committment to detail. The last thing I need is an audit because I used -O3 during compile time.
Some states (VA for example) have phased out telefile, citing increased interest in e-filing. Of course, VA allows you to file for free straight on the state revenue service's website; too much to ask from the IRS. Protecting their partners, indeed.
I don't know if it's related but...
Some years ago Glen Roberts got hold of the IRS' manual for auditors under the FOIA and published it. (At the time he was running a newspaper and selling books, essentially all based on info he got via the FOIA or his experiences in getting it. It included a "how to" manual for using the FOIA.)
The IRS got him enjoined from distributing the auditor's handbook. (And some agency also got him enjoined from distributing the FOIA "how to".)
I think fallout from that episode ended up limiting how much stuff you could get from the IRS under the FOIA.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
When my wife and I started acquiring investments and stock, we realized that things had just gotten too complicated for us; at one point, we did our taxes three times, and got three different results.
So, we've had them done by H&R Block for the past three years, and we'll be using them this year as well.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
http://www.taxactonline.com/
Entirely web-based; I've been using it to e-file under Linux for two years. If you just want hardcopy, it's actually free.
Here in Ireland (and in the rest of the EU) your tax is automatically taken out of your paycheck
It works the same way here in the US. Income and other taxes are automatically deducted from my paycheck. However, since income tax is not a flat percent of gross pay, what they deduct from the check will seldom match exactly with what you actually owe in taxes.
and you don't need to worry about filling in tax returns every year unless you run a business.
If you don't plan to take a number of itemized deductions, you can fill out the simple tax form, which basically requires you to add up how much money you made, look up in a table how much you owe in taxes on that amount, and then subtract the total amount taken in income taxes from your pay. It took me all of about 10 minutes to do my taxes last year, which included the time to add up the income from four sources.
Of course, owing to the special-interest and loop-hole filled mess which is the US tax code, you can often pay a bit less in taxes if you take the time to figure out all the deductions you're allowed to take and fill out the longer version of the tax form which lets you itemize your deductions. This can take quite a bit longer.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
My employer does take out the appropriate amount of taxes, based on a 'witholding' form I fill out, but:
my employer does not know how much interest I paid on tax deductible loans.
My employer does not know how much money I gave to charities this year.
My employer does not know how much I spent on medical expenses (which are deductible)
MY employer does not know how much money I made or lost in investments this year.
And I prefer to keep it that way.
Sales taxes in the U.S. are incredibly complicated. They vary by small region. Most States have a sales tax (in Virginia it is 4.5%), some cities take another 2-3% on top of that, some counties add a percent or two. In some jurisdictions food is not taxable, and in others, 'convenience food' is taxable, but not 'other' food - meaning I can walk into dunkin' donuts and get 1 donut and pay tax, or I can buy a dozen and pay no tax at all. Two identical stores with identical products just a few miles apart will pay different tax rates. It is ugly and complicated, but I like not having the tax as part of the advertised price - it makes it easier to comparison shop, and certainly makes the advertising literature easier to produce.
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.
I know the tax codes thoroughly, and I'm a professional tax preparer and programmer.
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?
I started one a few years ago, when I had a lot more time on my hands (of course my intention was to be able to use it, but as it turns out I just buy my e-file software for now, it's cheaper than writing the software myself). I abandoned it, largely because I suck at writing GUIs (it was basically my first attempt at using GTK). If a few people want to help me try again, I'm sure we could get something done in time for 2005s taxes (even if it's just the 1040-EZ, it'll generate enough interest to move forward). The specs are out there, but the work is tedious. If you're in, contact me at taxman@inbox.org.
If you are a employee I guess what you say applies quite well here in the U.S. But, for me, as a self-employed businessman with my fingers in numerous pies, my taxes are anything but.
Being in business for myself means there's a qualitative judgement for every expense: is it a "business expense"? I have numerous computers, one of which I spent 4 hours in the past year checking my email. Is the purchase of that computer a business expense?
I travelled to the Bay this year, with my kids, to visit the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. During this trip, I met with a potential client. Is this a business trip?
I have many, many times in the past not deducted legitimate business expenses, and purposely paid additional taxes, to "raise" my income in order to qualify for loans when buying property. It's often advantageous to pay a few hundred or thousand to get a property, or qualify for funding for XYZ business loan.
It's a routine - my accountant calls me as soon as he receives our tax stuff for the year and asks me: "More income, or lower taxes?".
Heck, when times were hard, I've even counted borrowed money as income!
I usually have about 100% flexibility - I usually have a 100% range (EG: $75,000 - $150,000 per year) in income I can claim depending on what I decide to call a "business expense".
This year, I'm going for low taxes - my actual income has raised nicely this last year, and I have no particular ambitions to buy real estate. Thus, I want to deduct everything I can think of. I'd write off my kids' allowance this year if my accountant can cook up a justifiable way to do so. Given a simple, written agreement that they sign to "clean Dad's office weekly", I can do so.
If preparing your taxes takes less than a week (by yourself or your book-keeper) you are a wage-slave, and I genuinely feel for you. There's a clear sense of purpose and control when you run your own business - it'd be damn hard to convince me I want a "boss"....
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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:
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:
- 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).
- Figure out the mysterious Step 2 (Hint: Getting recognized as an ERO, and coming up with a business model are likely involved)
- 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.
It may not be just, but it is fair, and that is more important.
So how will you be doing this year's taxes?
I won't. Instead, I'll pay x hundred $ for a kick-ass CPA, like I always do, who already forgot more about the tax laws than I'd ever want to know, who can handle my stock options and separate sole proprietorship and charitable contributions and new house interest and the fact that I just got married but didn't change my withholding . . .
I've come out in the black since I started using to my CPA, and I'll trade money for time any day.
A VAT tax is the kind of simplification that would allow a radical simplification of the income tax.
Richard Nixon floated the idea of a VAT tax for the United States.
VAT is used in Europe. VAT is where each seller collects the VAT tax on her sales and deducts the VAT paid buying stuff for sale. Governments like it because it tends to be "self collecting". It gets revenue from the formerly "underground" economy. It can get revenue from trans national corporations that manipulate "transfer payments" to shift profits offshore.
As a previous poster has noted, the tax system needs an XML data structure and an XML description of the algorithms for the computation of tax.
I've daydreamed like this: Divide the task into an algorithm part and a sample data part. A python root module would emulate the "1040" form. All the child forms would be separate Python Modules corresponding to each schedule or tax form. The XML tagged test data would be included with each package of modules. The package of algorithms plus data would be GPG signed.
This scheme allows free and professional tax applications to co-exist. It enables modular development. It creates credible test data that can be used to cross validate alternate tax packages. It enables trusted open source.
I've used TurboTax in the past, but switched back to pen & paper. The last time we used TurboTax was probably three years ago, but turned into a huge waste of time.
It blue-screened no less than three times on me, each time when being nearly done entering all relevant info, so I could start from scratch again... On a normally rock-solid computer that I don't recall every blue-screening on me otherwise. Never got it to finish the job, so had to resort to the pen & paper version in the end anyway.
Anyway, big waste of time & the money for TurboTax, so the next year we didn't even bother with the electronic versions, and just stuck with the paper.
Now add to that the bad press due to the unasked MBR modifications.
I don't forsee using the electronic filing again any time soon.
ONLY 6 people in the entire federal government are working on electronic filing?
There are 6 people in our company that do absolutely nothing except work on the federal tax product, and that's only in directly analyzing tax law and programming, and that's in maintenance mode (just doing year-to-year changes). When we wrote the 1040 system initially, there were dozens of people working on it for a couple of years. There are well over 100 people doing tax analysis and programming, and hundreds of others in documentation, support, sales, etc, but there are 6 that do not do any states or anything else.
If the "average" individual is spending 40 hours doing their taxes, then the average is higher than I thought complication wise or lower than I thought, intelligence-wise. Our product is complex because it deals with potentially very complex returns, involving data flow back and forth between businesses, partnerships, and individuals, and automatically optimizes each for the lowest taxes.
Even though we can use this software for free, my wife just does ours by hand because it's so simple. Probably 3 hours total.
Did it occur to you that the federal government could directly employ these experts and programmers to produce a free program?
Did it ever occur to you that the federal government may not be interested in running all companies out of business? They could nationalize everything and make everything as cheap as possible, too.
Let's nationalize the ENTIRE software industry. It actually makes a LOT of sense for the federal government to produce their own OS, office suite, etc, and give them away for free. THAT would make a LOT of sense. Almost everyone needs word processors and spreadsheets. Tax software, not so much. Most people do NOT need software to do their taxes, they just need to be able to add up a few numbers. But I think most people have gotten to the point where they can't count past 10 without taking off their shoes. I can't think of any other reason to spend 40 hours on their taxes, unless they do ZERO record keeping throughout the year (guess what; software won't organize that shoebox of crap FOR you), or if they have a complex return with partnerships or active shareholdings in corporations, or lots of real estate holdings or something.
You're saying that there should only be one entity performing each function in society, and that should be regulated by government? How socialist of you.
So the government should write a new operating system, office suite, etc, and give them away for free. They should also take over all wholesale and retail distribution and standardize everything. Also all technology, etc should be standardized by the government. No more individual innovation for you, buddy! (Yes, there IS innovation in the tax software industry. The basic calculations are set by regulations, but there's a lot of competition for ease-of-use functions).
By the way, I've worked a lot with the IRS and state DOR's over the years, and I do NOT want them writing the software that calculates my taxes. I'll do it by hand first.