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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.
The IRS has a Free File program that a number of companies provide assuming you don't have any "special cases", that is to say, can use the basic 1040 -- don't own a business, take standard deduction, etc. I've found (whodathunkit) H&R Block's Free File program to be quite good. I did my taxes in my lunchbreak and got my refund the next week.
I forgot where I read it, but on the 14th on the http://www.irs.gov/ they will post a full list of where you can file an electronic return for free.
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.
I use TeleFile to do my taxes. I call a 1-800 number and it's free.
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.
... I can say "yay, we've got something better!"
My little corner of Europe (Portugal) actually has a good e-tax delivery system: since last year, they have a Java application (which works beautifully in Linux, FreeBSD, and OSX) freely available for download on their site. It's as easy as:
1) Download and run the app
2) Fill the nice, easy-to-understand forms
3) Hit the "Check" button, and if all goes well, "Calculate", and "Save".
4) Get the resulting file, submit it through their website
5) Profit!
Zero cost, and very low margin for error. And the cherry on top is: e-submissions have a larger deadline than dead-tree submissions. After they validate everything on their end, you get an official-looking confirmation note in regular mail, and you're done.
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
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 was just released which allows you to save the completed forms.
If your taxes are more complex maybe TaxAct will fit the bill. I've used TaxAct a few times, and they were OK. You can do everything on the web and download a finished PDF of the forms. The downside is that it's slow to do it that way. You can also download some software from them to save your data locally, but it's windows only.
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
http://www.taxfreedom.com/
Select taxpayers under a certain income, or with a student or military status, can use the TurboTax Web edition for free, with a free e-file for their federal return and (if their state participates in the program) one free state tax return.
Acrobat 7 Linux Beta
Adobe cares, albeit just a tiny bit, about platforms other than Windows.
For more information, click here.
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.
Keep in mind that although H&R Block may say they will accompany you to an audit, they are in no way responsible if they screw up. Tax law specifically states that liability for filing errors are the filer's responsibility unless the return is prepared by a Certified Pubilc Acct. You will notice that H&RB (and Hewitt, et al.) will call themselves "Certified Tax Preparers" or some such nonsense.
Bottom line is that if they screw up, it is YOUR ass, not theirs. If you use a CPA, then you still have to pay the tax on any mistakes, but penalties, criminal charges, etc. are on the CPA, not you.
Not saying that they don't provide a valuable service, but make sure the person you are dealing with is knowledgeable and understands how much risk you are willing to take.
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
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
There are some places, mostly fast or quick service food, that include taxes in the price. Businesses won't go for it because then the product looks more expensive. Deception in numbers.
Taxes are automatically taken out of the paychecks of all but self employed people in the US. The problem is that an employer can't take out the exact amount from your paycheck because we don't have flat tax brackets, and have tax deductions. A part time job in addition to your main one may bump you up to a higher tax bracket. Your employer won't know how many dollars you deducted in mortgage interest, student loan interest, medical expenses and so forth. Most middle class and poor people either get a refund or end up paying a small amount at tax time.
If we had a flat tax or got rid of deductions, then the need to file would be almost nonexistent.
Some googling found me a program called Open Tax Solver. I haven't yet tried it, so I can't really say how good it is.
A version for this years US Form 1040 has apparently just been uploaded.
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?
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
Four years ago I bought a Jackson Hewitt tax franchise as a hedge against the day when I'm too old to program. I'm 52, work full time as a C++ programmer, and haven't been laid off yet!
I'm not sure about H&R, but as part of our basic price we promise to pay any interest and penalities that occur if we make a mistake. In addition, for a small charge the client can extend that coverage to include up to $5000 in additional taxes that might be levied.
Tax filings are the taxpayers responsiblity even if God himself prepared the return. I'm sure a CPA prepared Al Capone's return, but Big Al is the one who went to jail.
You will notice that H&RB (and Hewitt, et al.) will call themselves "Certified Tax Preparers" or some such nonsense.
I pass a difficult exam (based on the tax portion of the CPA exam)in order to qualify as an Enrolled Agent which gives me the right to represent clients in audits and in tax court on identical basis as attorneys and CPAs. Of course EA have identical responsibilities with our attorney and CPA friends. See IRS circular 230.
Most Jackson Hewitts have an EA or CPA available to represent client in audits.
All you folks doing the free returns, when you get the letter from the IRS this summer let me help you get amend your return to get you out of trouble.
I happen to work for a company that makes tax software. It's a ton of work. A tax analyst (typically a CPA) and programmer team will typically have between 2 and 4 states, plus there is a team of a dozen or so that spend full time all getting approved forms (the forms must be very, very precise since they are usually optically scanned). There is a team of a dozen or so doing underlying programming for the system in general. The federal system has a half dozen people dealing with it specifically. All these people are doing this full time.
This is not even mentioning the fact that we have a lot of integrated accounting systems that interface with it, because those don't interest you.
If you're implying that some community should do this, I just don't see how it can happen. The knowledge is quite specialized and a ton of work is needed on a recurring basis. A LOT of testing must be done. People probably will not be willing to use a system unless there's some liability on the part of the authors.
If you're saying that the government should provide the software, good luck. The states are all WOEFULLY understaffed; with the budget cuts in the last few years, many states have had their taxing agencies practically decimated. Most lost a lot of staff, some lost most of theirs. The remaining staff is hideously overworked, and there's practically zero programmer time available.
What's the incentive for the government to push for something like this? There are already good products on the market, and they don't have to lift a finger to do it. If they did go thorough all that work, they'd be taking business away from companies, and they'd be taking on liability themselves for incorrect programming.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Check out TaxACT. The basic "fill in the forms" version is free -- you print the resulting forms and mail them in, and it doesn't cost you anything. You can e-file for $7.95. No, it's not free, but come on -- under $8? You can barely see a movie for that these days.
The deluxe edition is only $9.95, and it is more thorough if you have things that can give you tax breaks. I'm doing the deluxe version this year, but did the standard one last year -- I started out thinking I'd print and just do it for free, but then realized that the convenience of e-file for $8 really can't be beat...
Since it's web-based, it works fine from Linux. One problem I had (and I've had with another web site as well): for some bizarre reason, the first screen, with the user agreement, looked entirely blank -- it was really just white text rendered on a white background. Strange. It came up fine in konqueror and firefox though, and once you get past that first screen everything seems to work fine in Mozilla (it did force me to install Firefox though, which is actually a good thing).
Anyway, sorry to sound like an ad, but I like it, and I like that I can use it under Linux. It gives my sense of privacy a bit of the willies, but I think you're pretty well protected by law as far as that goes...
Scribus is a robust open source desktop publishing app. Editing pdfs is one of its most killer tools.
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.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan