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Open Source Tax Products?
sub7 asks: "That time of the year is upon as again: Tax Season. Those of us living in the U.S. are busy fumbling with various forms with awkward names and meaningless garble on them. Being a lazy BOFH, I went to H & R Block to see how much it would cost for them to prepare and file my taxes. They estimated -at least- $175, if not more! I knew it was cheaper to buy some software to handle my taxes. So I headed down to my local office supply conglomerate and picked up Turbo Tax 2004 Premier for $69.99. Being an OSS user for nearly 6 years I have never even considered an OSS tax solution product (probably because I ph34r t4x s34s0n!). So I turn to Slashdot to ask: Are there any projects equivalent to Turbo Tax or the other tax products out there for the OSS community?"
No.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
No, but
Long Answer: yes, however.
Trudging through tax law every year and coding an application just can't be fun enough to reliably get a group of coders to produce something like this with any regulartity. Can it?
Do you like wine with your taxes?
They estimated -at least- $175, if not more!
Er, isn't that repetitive redundancy? Doesn't "at least" mean the same as "if not more"?
Why did you buy the software? You can fill the entire thing out online and save half the cash.
:)
The site actually works flawlessly in Firefox too
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
For crying out loud, just do the damned taxes yourself or, if you're not a government employee, don't do them at all. But geez... it's not really all that hard or tedius unless you have a lot of things you want to include or some sort of tax strategy... in which case you probably shouldn't trust your taxes to a software app or some H&R monkey.
I've never had to do my own taxes and have it take more than an hour... usually much much less. Definitely not worth spending money on.
Open Tax Solver
Mexican border controls are almost certainly cheaper than $69.
sulli
RTFJ.
Anybody who invests five minutes in researching this will find that no, there aren't any OSS tax solutions.
Why?
They aren't needed.
If you go to irs.gov, they will link you to several services which will enable you to prepare and electronically file your taxes online, completely free of charge. Most won't file your state taxes for free, but then, many states allow you to file for free on their own website.
I didn't pay a dime this year, and I didn't have to print out any forms. And yes, I have a reasonably complicated tax return.
you can fill the entire thing out online and save all the cash!
Step One: Kidnap accountants
Step Two: Kidnap l337 coders
Step Three: ???
Step Four: Profit!..er..I mean Free tax software
Oh wait, I forgot a step...
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
You're not really buying programming there, you're buying a lawyer's time through proxy. All the lawyers I know bill out in six minute increments and earn every freakin' penny they make (and it's a lot of them), so I don't think you're going to be getting this kind of stuff for free. You could make the program free, but you'd still have to buy the advice.
That said, TurboTax for the Web is cheaper, works for everyone who only lived in one state this tax season, and will run in Firefox on Linux and Mac, so at least you don't have to use Windows if it's not your cup of tea.
adam b.
Are there any projects equivalent to Turbo Tax or the other tax products out there for the OSS community?
You could always not pay. I mean, just ask Bill Gates, right? All OSS supporters are evil communists that want to destroy America, capitalism and the free market economy. None of us would want to pay taxes.
Can you imagine the horror of a OSS tax prep software package? By the time tax season rolled around we'd have 5 forks of shoddily written, poorly maintained code, and at least three new holy wars.
No thanks. I'll leave it in the hands of people that have accountability.
Why would you trust volunteers to produce tax software? If the software miscalcuates something or the programmers misinterpret some arcane IRS ruling, you end up being liable for the mistake -- which could cost you thousands of dollars.
Now if TaxCut or Turbo Tax has a defect like that, the company agrees to assume responsibility for calculation errors.
TaxCut Deluxe is $25, and the state version is $20 with a $20 rebate. If you don't want to spend the money, you can easily use a spreadsheet & calculator to figure your taxes, and waste 5-6 more hours in the process.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
How about using the IRS listing for free filers: http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp You could also use the web based version on your OSS box. Other then that, I don't think there is anything OSS for tax purposes.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
One of the things I like about TurboTax is the peace of mind. The company itself certifies that your results are correct, and will even litigate on your behalf if you run into trouble because you used their program.
... anyone?
Would an OSS tax software project have deep enough pockets to provide the same sort of guarantees? Because I think for many people to place their trust in an OSS tax preparation package, they would have to have some assurance that the results weren't going to either get them audited or thrown in prison.
Perhaps if there was a CPA out there who could also hammer out code
I used TaxSlayer online this year. No problems with the site using Firefox for Linux. Free processing if you're 25 or under, 61 or older, or an active member of the military.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
First, getting tax software correct requires a team of tax accountants who are up to snuff on the latest tax regulations. Good luck getting them to chip in on a free software product. Second, liability for said tax accountants and the programmers. If a software product submits a bad e-File, guess whose problem it is according to the IRS: the user. But then the user can go to civil court and get redress from the software author(s). Good luck getting anyone to submit code and/or advice for free when they might be on the hook some day for a huge class action. You can be assured that the commercial tax software products have loads of insurance that isn't cheap. The list goes on.
In the past, I have written a spreadsheet that looks just like that tax forms sent in the mail. Then you just do that calculations. It is very simple to do and takes away about 90% of the input (Ontario, Canada) you have to do. So I cannot see why it could not be done. It took me two days to enter in the forms.
What amazes me, is in Canada where your banks, schools, employers all send the data to Revenue Canada is that I have to file at all. I shouldn't have to unless I have self income, or something else not on the grid.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
Dude...
You got fleeced. 70$ to do your taxes?
http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?
The above URL is for the IRS freefile(Most people qualify. Be careful about ancillary products.)
Also, if you live in CA, check out FTB's website, they have a link to file your state taxes which actually is pretty neat.
With the above, OSS tax filing is kinda moot.
BTW, both the above sites worked with mozilla.
Since I started having an accountant prepare my taxes three years ago there has not been a year where he did not save me far for than the small amount of money he charges to to my taxes. If you have kind of investments or run a small business then the reduction in liability from having a professional do your taxes is worth it.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
.....Linux is communism right? So there is no need for taxes let alone currency. Duh.
For the past two years I've done my taxes through a couple different free (as in beer) online services. I don't know what exactly to call them, but all I know is I put in some numbers, hit send, and the IRS electronically recieved my tax forms and was kind enough to send me a hefty tax return check a few weeks later. :)
But I only worked part-time jobs those years and didn't make a whole lot, so I got to use the 1040EZ form. I don't know if people who actually make real money have the same priveldges of using those free services as I did.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
I found a guy that did my taxes for around $90, state, fed and a extra form or 2 for some ebay sales and side contact work I had done.
Best of all if you get audited over the taxes they did, they will come with you to the audit.... turbo tax doesn't do that.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
I use this (IRS Form 1040, pdf format), this (IRS Form 1040 instructions, pdf format), and XCalc. Seems to work fine for me.
I toggled a toggle and buttoned a button, but when I got done, I was done doin' nothin'.
What about security? You want your tax files floating around the net?
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.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
http://www.taxfreedom.com/v /app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?
or
http://www.irs.go
for a complete list of freefile services
why not use the web version of TurboTax, TaxCut, or TaxAct. As a previous poster said due to the yearly changes in the tax code who would want to take on such a project. And not to slam the OSS community or anything but I don't think I would trust doing my taxes on just any hack job of a tax package. Besides the big tax software houses usually check your return and offer and audit protection gauarantee.
gnuTaxes is looking hopeful, if you're still living in 1999. From their "future release section":
1.0.0 - release gnuTax application with complete tax system definitions by end of 2000..
Seriously, these applications are not simple to write, and they change quite a bit, every year. Further, there's probably a certain amount of liability involved. You're better off sticking with one of the big commercial applications, or a web filing service. Hopefully they'll eventually write one in Java...
Personally, I'm intimidated enough by what the IRS can do to me for just messing up my own taxes. I shudder to think what could happen to someone giving bad tax guidance to thousands of people.
John Hancock wuz here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My tax preparer seems to be closed source. I keep on trying to reverse engineer the DNA, but with questionable mutations. Any suggestions out there?
Seriously, go to an enrolled agent or CPA. They pay for themselves in knowledge of tax breaks.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
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/
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
But I wouldn't recommend making ANY modifications to their original source...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
In effort to move more returns to electronic, the irs has partnered with several providers to provide free tax filing. you can use their tools and file for free (as in beer).
I finished my taxes already and acutally have already recieved my refund, but for those just getting into it now, beware.
This year TurboTax requires that you buy the premier version if you have anything like options of employee stock purchase plans. Last year, I had basic and I was covered. This is a difference of approx $40. (and they let give you a space to enter the amount you paid for tax prep software, but it did not change my refund amount any) Also make sure you save your reciept if you are going to do e-filing and would like to have any hope of the rebate they offer.
I hope competent alternatives are highlighed here, I would switch in an instance.
TurboTax for the Web
I've been using this for several years, and it works extremely well. If you can use EZ forms, you can use their EZ product. Almost everyone else, up through some very sophisticated needs, can use their "Basic" products. It will also handle your state returns. If you use Basic, expect about $45 to electronically file everything.
It's a very capable product, and, while not itself an open source product, at least lets you *run* it on open source OSes and OSes other than Windows.
If you qualify, and almost everybody does, you can use TurboTax Online for free. I used it, and it worked flawlessly.
You can even do your state tax form for free also if your state participates.
http://www.statetaxfreedom.com
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
What do you call this?
Why would anybody not have their taxes filed already?
This signiture copied from somewhere.
I was about to post a google link, but thanks for taking the initiative.
That being that one of the main things (if not the main thing) I pay for when I prepare my taxes with TurboTax or what have you is the privaledge to have my filing done electronically. Since non-government bodies have to go through an irritating process and some money to be able to file these forms electronically, logically it seems to me that you're going to end up either having to pay for the software or mail in a bunch of paper.
adam b.
http://home.mchsi.com/~taxcalculator/
I've used this guy's spreadsheets for the last couple years and haven't had any problems.
Surely if the product is worth it, i.e the value of using the piece of software outweighs that which you spend on it and that on a per time/money basis it is better than the alternative, then you shouldn't be balking at the price. When I get on a bus, I feel that the value I get for arriving at my destination faster, safer and drier is worth more than the amount saved if I walked. Similarly, if I pay $x amount for a plumber, the time saved, and money saved (for not having to invest time in learning how to fix a problem, or making a even bigger mistake) outweighs that person's cost.
Depending on the complexity of your taxes you can file free on the web with the Federal gov't and even most state governments. I prepared taxes on the web this year and was really impressed at how easy the systems are and how advanced they let you get. Be sure to check our the Free File options to see if you qualify.
What might be doable is Open Source tax filing software, rather than tax preparation software.
To be honest, I'd like to see any software which would allow me to figure out my taxes myself and simply file the damn things electronically. I see no reason why I should have to overpay a form monkey or put up with crappy software that can't do as good a job of figuring my taxes as I can myself.
For now, I'm stuck using paper.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
If you go to www.irs.gov they list a bunch of online services for free. Two of them being Turbo Tax and H&R Block. Actually, it's free to file Federal, and state was $24.95 to file.
hack a day
First, if all you have is W2s, you're foolish to do anything but grab the forms and do it yourself. They still have 1040EZ, don't they? Its basic math, and a lookup table or two. You can handle this stuff.
Second, if you have other sources of income, like savings accounts, investments, income on the side, then maybe you'll need something like Turbotax to help you out.
I've had a small six-figure consultant shop going for three years, and I've used a tax consultant, and I've use turbotax. The tax consultant asked me to organize my documents and led me through a long series of questions and answers to figure out how much I owe. Turbo tax asked me to organize my documents and led me through a long series of questions to figure out how much I owe. I never get returns, but I owed less with Turbotax, spent less money and had to endure less small talk.
If you're documents are in good order and you stay on top of things and you arent' doing creative accounting, you'll be fine. If not, you're going to have problems no matter what you do. I'd consider using accountants and tax professionals when you start having to deal with employees and with-holding and your yearly tax liabilities start to get deeper into the five and six figure ranges.
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
I'm not sure who holds the patents for these but pencil and paper seem to work out just fine me and my kin. Besides, if you will have pay more or recieve a refund you're doing it wrong. The amount you have to pay or the amount you would recieve in refund should be as close to zero as possible for both state and federal.
Well, if there was ever a need for support and updates... which last I heard was the OSS business model. However, since you only need it once a year, it'd be too easy to get it from someone else. Maybe a duel license model, where you have a "basic" OSS app, and some extended for-pay features to catch you once the taxes get too complex.
However, I think it is the double tranlation that is the killer. First someone needs to translate the tax code from legalese to english, then from english to code. And I'm sure it'd have to come with a big fat label saying we're not responsible if the IRS come knocking. I'm sure TurboTax isn't either, but I'm not sure I'd like to be head scapegoat of such a project...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
1) Taxes are hard. If your tax preparer is no good, it can cost you thousands of dollars. For example, if you adopt a child, and your tax preparer doesn't know about certain credits, you just lost enough money to buy a big screen TV. Oops.
2) TurboTax is no guarantee of success, anyway, unless your taxes are trivial.
3) My recommendation is to be related to someone at H&R Block, so you can get your taxes done for free.
Also, for people in the OSS realm struggling with Quicken options and don't like GNUCash, it would be worth looking at www.moneydance.com. It's written in Java, so it works in Linux and UNIX no questions asked. I don't work for them, it's just that I now have a finance application under Solaris! I barely ever boot Windows, now.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Why do we post this once a year? READ THIS: Writing tax software is so boring, there likely will never be a Open Source tax software package....ever. First off, what if there's a serious bug in the version your using? At least you have some kind of legal recourse if the software really borks up. Like I said, it's boring dry stuff and as most Open Source developers do it for fun, it's just isn't going to happen.
Filing online has other things associated with it. I am not sure of it now, but I know in the past the web filing companies only processed those who could file witha EZ form. I have filled out 1040 since I was about 22. The long form gave me the best deductions of any of them.
For free as in beer software, I still swear by Tax Act. Where they did have a brief stint of sending spam, they have gotten better at that and we'll use that to print of the forms and mail them in or pay them for the electronic filing.
Gorkman
It seems weird to me, that you'd need to get someone to do them or buy a software to help you. But I wonder what's the big differences between doing taxes here in Brazil and in the US.
:)
I've been doing my own (business and personal) for two years now. I always feared the time I'd have to do it myself (my parents used to do it for me
I found out it's the easiest thing, provided that you saved receipts for education, healthcare and employment or work done. The government provides a free (as in beer) software that helps you fill it up and you can send the file through the same application or deliver a paper or disc version on post offices.
I have to fill it up for me and my husband for all our work/home expenses and it doesn't take me half an hour.
What goes with US taxes? Too many calculations? I'm completely clueless about this...
Cozinha para as massas (e para geeks)
If you make good money, get yourself a decent CPA and make some more. They're totally worth it, and give great advice.
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?/
There's an entire industry built completely around the US federal and state tax codes. Not only are the codes complex, they change every year. To turn tax code into computer code every year takes a team of tax experts. So the only way I could imagine seeing an OSS tax software package would be for an accounting firm to release software for filing simple tax returns hoping those who hit the limits of the software come in for consultation. But a complete package is almost out of the question.
Many people can file a 1040 and be done with it. For those returns the paper is easy enough. If it's worth using software it's because it's a more complex return. That means software that's very expensive to write.
Developers: We can use your help.
Ok, duplicate news stories is one thing...
but duplicate ask slashdots?
STFU, you slack-jawed, celebrity watching, People magazine reading, mouth-breathing, voyeuristic, drooling simpleton. What Jackson is alleged to have done is so mild compared to what happens THOUSANDS of times to children every day.
Why people are so fascinated and invest so much energy going after Jackson when there are much, much more egregious things going on is beyond me.
That's not to say that Jackson should not face concequences, but the millions of dollars and thousands of hours invested on going after this guy are pissed away when there is much more serious child abuse so rampant.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Didn't tax season start about a month and a half ago when everyone should've already received their W2's?
Unless you owe money, I can't see any reason to wait until the middle of March, much less April 15th.
if H&R or TurboTax make mistakes, you can hold them responsible. at least, they will give you the guarantee. i dont think anyone would stand behind any OSS programs when it comes to IRS liability.
not to sound judgemental, but if you are talking about saving $70 to $175 as being a "big deal," i tend to suspect that it's more of your laziness rather than complications that's preventing you from trying/using the IRS electronically fillable forms, available for free online.
Fry's, Best Buy, and CompUSA all charge about $20 for TurboTax Premier or TaxCut Premier, with free state package and free federal e-file, if you spend the 30 minutes afterwards to fill out the multitude of rebate forms. Plus they throw in free Norton Antivirus upgrades, a free accessory deduction estimating piece of software, and free upgrades for a couple other pieces of software.
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.
A "+funny" for telling the truth?
Now the rest of the posts are going to be half for explaining the "why not?", and the rest are "WTF? I thought F/OSS is a cure for everything?"
Did anyone else read this as a proposed new tax on Open Source software. shesssh. I gotta get my first coffee of the day.
Actually it would not suprise me if California is already considering such a bill.
This was the first year I've done my taxes without using an tax prep software or a tax service. In the past, I've gone to H&R Block or used TaxAct, TaxCut, etc.
This is also the year my taxes were the most complex: house, investments, wife doing a home business.
When all was said and done, I found it easier to use the tax forms and booklets than anything else. I know how the tax code works now. It's really not that complex.
On topic, I'd not want to use an OSS tax program. I'd be afraid of having bad calculations somewhere, or bad advice in the program's help files. Adding and subtracting isn't all that hard, so the fillable Adobe forms from the IRS worked just fine.
My state (Montana) actually provides calculating fillable Adobe forms. Just plug in the numbers and it computes it all for you.
I don't see much of a market for an Open Source product in this area. Every Open Source project has these little "use at your own risk" attachments, whether explicitly noted, or implicitly implied when you download and use the software.
And it would be a major problem to keep an OSS type project current with IRS tax codes. (and in all 50 States as well)
Most people would be willing to pay the $60 to avoid the pain of an IRS audit, or worse!!!
(can you say "seizure of assets"???)
Free File
is free as in beer good enough?
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
That was indeed one of the nice things having lived in Switzerland -- for your income tax declaration, you can freely download a program using which you can do the taxes; and that program (TaxMe) had been written in Java, so it runs perfectly on Linux...
...for all the common prejudice about the Swiss being backwards - they're incredibly forward thinking in a few areas! :-)
And when you're finished, it will just generate a pdf with your full tax declaration that you can print and send to their "IRS"...
it eFiles both state and federal for cheap and has a better interface than any iteration of turbo tax that I've ever seen.
The downside is that you have to trust the company with your financial info and transmit it to them over SSL. but this is slashdot, we know how to be secure... right?
..because all the OS developers are commies, who don't pay taxes!
Read the EULA and read this, in the Gripe Log, before you buy.
www.mikesmind.com - www.daddyworkathome.com - www.freetofarm.org - www.tenfoottable.com
not necessarily more interesting, but more relevant to the conversation. And besides, you don't see much interest in any other child molestation trials, just because this guy is a celebrity doesn't mean that his trial is any more important. Are we going to post on slashdot every time that a bench warrant is issued?
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Everyone knows that Open Source projects don't make money, therefore they have no need for this "tax software" you speak of.
But seriously, tax software may be one arena in which Open Source ain't the best way to go. The bug in your free OS can be fixed with a kernel patch; the guys in black cars and dark shades knocking on your door cannot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
MoneyDance
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
" Apparently the IRS isn't allowed to do this because it would compete with private tax software providers. Go figure."
What's to figure? The government isn't a business, and shouldn't behave like one. At the least, the government makes a level playing field by making the information widely available, for free. Is it anyone elses fault that F/OSS coders can't be bothered doing the needed work?
I prefer TaxAct. It's about 1/3 the price and does just as good of a job.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
Most Swiss cantonal (=state) authorities provide a tax application for free. Just download and fill in. The program is written in Java and works on most platforms, including Windows, Mac and Linux. Printing generates PDF files with a special barcode, the tax office scans that page and does not have to retype the data.
It's not open source, but supported freeware.
For my canton you can get it here
Markus
Yields how I've been doing my taxes for the past three years:
http://hrblock.com/goto/free
If you don't mind filling out your state paperwork yourself, it doesn't cost you a dime.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
http://www.turbotax.com/ worked for me and Firefox on Fedora!
There is a deeper problem to the software tax issue, than just can we get it OOS. Quite simply, it is all the DRM stuff put into the current privatly published tax software.
Where I come from (Canada), you are required to keep your records for at least 7 years, yet most of this software is controlled to be registered to one machine. How many people have the same computer they had 7 years ago?
Now, lets say you get audited after you get a new machine. Could be in six months, or six years, and you don't have your tax software installed. You have all your print outs, and you have all your original files made by the software package, but how did the math work, and all your items interrelate? Who knows? Humm, what to do?
They don't sell the package anymore, and you can't re-install even if you have the original's.
Personally, I have been ghosting HD's after tax time for years, and just praying that I can still find hardware compatible enough with the chipset drivers that will run it if I ever get audited.
Not a very secure place to be.
Personally, I think in this day and age, the Government should be obligated to supply the software, free of charge, and have historical copies available to all. Barring that, the companies should be required to publish a free version of thier software after it is pulled from the store shelves.
1. How much did you make?
2. Send it in.
Why should I pay someone to fill out 3 pages of forms, which are mostly zeroes anyway? Takes me about 2 hours to do it once, check and then copy it to the second copy very legibly.
Then mail it in, and save the $35 electronic filing fee.
Total cost? $.35 and I have some fun doing it.
If it's $300 it's worth it.
I fail to see (and I used to be this way too) why people will spend less on a product/service to think they're saving more.
TurboTax is OK if you live in an apartment and only work for an employer. If you're a home owner, forget it. Accountants are far better for this than some buggy software.
Wether you spend $70 on tax software or $300 for an accountant, it's tax deductible meaning it's like you didn't earn it so instead of $60,000 a year, you made $59,700 a year.
If your tax liability is less with a $59,700 solution (usually in the thousands), don't you think that the value is well worth it?
One thing H&R Block does is offer indemnification for any errors. My mother in-law had a $3000 error in her favor that the IRS wanted back of which HRB promptly paid without any liability to her.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Surely somewhere, somehow you know an accountant!? Promise your accountant friend free computer service in exchange for doing your taxes. Works for me.
go read the heated debates they had releasing it, but in the end OSS won
http://www.turbocash.co.za/
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/turbocash/
so go contribute (all languages and many countries supported), its the only free open source dedicated accounting package that you can actually do buisness on
I've used http://www.hrblock.com/ the last few years. Has worked great and covers at least every middle-class financial situation I've encountered with my taxes. I can't speak for the wealthy with uber-investments.
H&R Block Online even keeps past year's filings online for you. And the Premimum service is only $39.95.
The only thing you have to question is whether you want your financial data stored online by a third party.
Why don't you just use Turbo Tax for the web? It's FREE for crying out loud!
...tax software is the one thing I don't mind paying for, and specifically because if Turbo Tax screws up big time and I find the IRS crawling up my hoo-hah, I would expect that I could go to Turbo Tax and at least get them to explain why the problem happened. (provided the problem wasn't caused by stupid user input)
I don't think I could expect to sue any other company for their software flaws, but I think everyone expects tax software to be as accurate as possible and to have the backing of the software company if it's not.
There are two seasons in my world - Hockey and Construction
The IRS web site has several free ways to file and prepare your taxes.
http://www.irs.gov
No you won't get as good a return as an accountant, but that's what you get for a free solution.
Oderint dum metuant
what could be easier or more fair then a flat tax across the board? Others have said a consumption tax but I think that would slow the economy to much.
Just think of how easy it would be to create OSS for earnings divided by a constant?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
So I turn to Slashdot to ask: Are there any projects equivalent to Turbo Tax or the other tax products out there for the OSS community?
I'd settle for writable PDF form versions that check the consistency of numeric input. That is not a big stretch from the non-editable PDF's the IRS already distributes.
an ill wind that blows no good
Both options are deductible on next year's return. So even your H&R monkey fee will come back to you, and a flesh-based accountant is more likely to get you a better return, since they know the loopholes.
lambda = h/p
In Brazil the government allways developed the program used to it. They even developed a Java version, so you could use it on linux.
They banned paper forms last year, and those who send all the data by internet have some advantages. I don't know all the functions Turbo Tax has, a government developed program can be better.
There is absolutely no logic to this other than you cannot manage money.
You are saying that you want the IRS to reduce your take home pay to ensure you cover all of your tax and then some. So, if you can live off this reduced amount, have the IRS take out less money, and put this money into savings. If you find you can't save it, that is a sign that you don't have an effective budget. You have proven you can live off of less money.
Loaning the IRS money is insane.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
However, I also decided that the record keeping was enough of a pain that I would go ahead and use turbotax, (until the evil DRM reared its ugly head).
So I ended up redoing 3 years of tax returns, (in addition to the current year), which meant collecting up the versions of turbotax from each of those years, etc. I'd be surprised if the web version will let you go back and amend things for free, etc. Anyways, to summarize:
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.")
Where you can use e-tax currently unavailable cause the tax year is July to June. The software is very good and the need for tax accountants is dwindling.
http://www.turbocash.co.za/
Mature FOSS GPL , linux roadmaps, win32 , 9 countries supported USA/UK/ES/NL/SA etc etc
It's called math! It's been opensource for years now, and is 100% free. Granted it's not as user friendly as the alternatives, but we should be used to this kind of kludgy interface by now.
I'm hoping they fix the obvious usability issues in the next version.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Tax Act is free software for federal returns:
http://taxact.com/
You can print your forms or pay less than $10 to eFile. The "Deluxe" version is about $12 and includes federal eFile.
There were twenty free-filing web software sites at irs.gov when I checked today. In previous years they were free only if you made less than $35K, but several of them, including the biggest names, are totally free this year. You may have to pay for state filing, or very specialized forms, or tax advice software.
I filed before these were available, so I haven't tried one. I am hesitant to type my ID numbers and list of income generating accounts into a web site where who knows who is looking. More hesitant when hearing about even more devious spyware.
The IRS only allows certified 3rd parties to efile for you. This is to decrease fraud.
With the rash of ID thefts occuring, which of these online services look to be the best bet? I'd hate to hand over my tax info to some site, only to have them do an "oopsie" and lose it to some random h4x0r.
"Where can I get a FREE piece of software because I don't want to PAY for one."
Why does OSS have to be a code word for "freeware"?
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.
I was unable to find anything open source to do my taxes, and I do not trust my tax data to any company's servers, so using Wine in linux I installed the Windows version of Firefox, the Mozilla plugin for activex and H&R Block's Tax Cut.
Not totally open source, but it worked well for getting taxes done!
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
Shouldn't we be asking SCO about this, I mean after, all they... aww hell, nevermind.
FLR
On January 8th, 2005, vettemph (that's me) post this:
/ 00 24258&tid=103&tid=98&tid=4
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/09
You will find your answers (yes and no) there.
PS- Time's ugh waste'n.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Many technical standards have associated with them a reference application, the operation of which is defined as the correct operation. Reference applications are a great way of resolving the inevitable ambiguities that arise in standards. IRS could publish an open source reference application that would have a high likelihood of meeting the IRS rules for nearly all tax filers, and could be used as a base of study by the commercial tax software industry.
If IRS were to adopt and publish such a reference application, then perhaps 95% of the questions that filers ask them could be answered by the application. The answers would be correct, or at least consistent. If an error were found, then the application could be corrected and everyone whose filing was affected by that error would be known and easily corrected. This is in contrast to the uncomfortably high error rate that the IRS telephone advisors have exhibited. (There many articles regarding studies of the error rate of IRS advisors, and all of those tax prep companies. I'm too lazy to find them today.)
Implementing a subset of their algorithm suitable for processing on a desktop is entirely within their capabilities. The IRS computers presently do this processing for nearly all filers. In other words, they already have a 'reference application'. It's just not public.
Such a reference application would not impact the commercial software industry, in fact it could help them as much as it would help anyone. I would expect that such an application need not have all the wysy features of a commercial tax prep product, and the commercial products might have much better tools for helping a person figure out the best strategy. Commercial vendors who want to base their product on the IRS product might or might not be be required to publish their own source, but should at least have to provide IRS with information on any errors that they identify, to allow correction by everyone.
A reference application would also be useful to IRS. It would provide a common reference point for all discussions and contentions regarding interpretation of the tax code.
There are some interesting legal questions. The majority of them would be answered by the following statements: 'This reference application is for reference by software professionals and is not intended for use 'as-is' by untrained individuals. It is applicable for the majority of individual tax filers, but not all. IRS does not guarantee accuracy and is not responsible for errors. Over- or under-payments, including interest and penalties the result from errors in the software are the responsibility of the filer, however underpayment as a result of a software error will not be presumed to be an act of fraud."
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
At least you admit the problem :)
Some suggestions... Max your 401(k) contribution if it is available. Always good to get the money into savings before you see it. If not available, there are IRA programs that will electronically withdraw money from your account on a periodic basis for no fee.
Second, use auto-deposit. Something psychological about not going to the bank and cashing a check that keeps our from spending as much.
Third, if you have a problem with creit cards, don't carry them with you. I use a cc for all purchase for tracking purposes. However, the are paid off before I get a finance charge, and they all give me cash back (or free gas).
If you want me to give you more information on any of these, please let me know...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"Same applies to painting and decorating, and just about anything. If you earn $20 per hour, pay someone $10 to do it for you. Instead of doing your tax return, work an extra couple of hours overtime in your day job, pay the accountant and you are in profit."
Unfortunately a lot of F/OSS advocates know the price of everything (0), and the value (time) of nothing. That's why piracy is such a problem. Any society is predicated upon the idea that the individual can't know, or do everything. So we delegate, and compensate others for doing so.
A trip to H&R Block will pay for itself, so long as you identify the pitbull of the office. There is always one person, usually a woman, who will really hammer away with personal zeal at getting you a big return. your $175 investment could easily pay for itself if not pocket you some phat cash.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Governemnt agencies arent as good as private companies in developing software, so it may be better to farm it out to those hungry enough to make a profit. If the private software fails, the word gets out quickly and the company fails. Turbo Tax nearly died three years ago when when it required InterNet activation. Customers left in droves and only slowly returning.
I thought it was about some new computer product tax to finance open source software :D
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
Open Source Software is sometimes better (firefox vs IE). Some commercial software is worth the price. I used to fill out my taxes by hand until one tax retrun where I made a $500 error and it took me months to clear the issue. The $40 is so worth it to me because of the saved time and better accuracy.
Hell simplifying the tax code will save the gov't an assload of money too. Since they could reduce the size of the IRS.
A person once told me a good analogy that applys here. Lets say you want to learn to get to work 5 mins sooner. You could practice running out of your house into your car a bunch and shave off 5-10 seconds there. Or you could investigate different driving routes that could potentially save >5 mins.
Point is, software and how we file is not where we want to streamline the tax process as its the least of the tax systems problems. Go after the big fish, the core of the tax code.
I slogged through the instruction booklet for a weekend, reading, entering numbers, etc. and agonized went I got diverted into ancillary worksheets hidden in the booklet. Talk about stealth bureaucracy!
But think about the Line by Line process of filling out the tax form. It's just a bunch of notices and instructions which could naturally be recast into any programming language that can print out a descriptive text, accept numerical input values and do simple arithmetic.
Most of the entries could be answered with "This doesn't apply to me - enter zero." as default answers.
In the longer run, releasing a programming language version of the tax form makes sense because the same 1099 forms that are sent to the IRS electronically could be made available to you as you fill out the form (assuming you can identify and authenticate yourself).
No, it shouldn't be SomeVendors closed proprietary solution..
The IRS should release the 1040 form in XML.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Not everyone's taxes are as simple as yours.
Let's see if you still have this opinion if you ever buy and sell multiple rental properties in variouos states in a single year. Oh, let's see if you make over $150,000 per year and you don't qualify for most deducions any longer. What about capital gains taxes? Taxes on dividends? Do you even know what a "wash sale" is? If you short stocks, how do you account for taxes on gains?
Encourage people to do their own taxes when you know what you're talking about. I'm not a tax preparation person and since I don't make my money that way, I decided to pay an expert a relative pittance to do my taxes while I did things that made me an order of magnitude more money.
You can go to http://www.ufile.ca/ -- just $14.95 Canadian. Haven't tried it myself, we've always got at least one Windows machine around.
chuk
you know, there is a distinct lack of open source software to file taxes, so I thought I would help out the community by posting some software to help you calculate your taxes*.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
float income;
cout<<"so how much did you make this year?: ";
cin>>income;
if(income<1000000)
cout<<"you owe $"<<(income - 1)<<endl;
else
cout<<"the IRS owes you $"<<(income / 2)<<endl;
return 0;
}
*CYA Clause: I take no responsibility for anything you do with this program. If you pay too much or too little, then it's your fault, not mine.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Send me the $4,300 check. I will give it back to you in a year, and you can feel like it is a pleasant surprise. I will earn interest off of it, and we will both be better off! :)
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The Deluxe version includes a free state download, which acts as an add-on patch (takes your Fed info you typed in, copies it to the state, then asks you a few more questions). This lets you do Federal and State taxes, and you can get it done in an hour or less, with little or no pain. The Deluxe version is 40 bucks, so why would you buy the more expensive one? BTW, the Deluxe CD-ROM is both Windows and Mac on the same CD, and State is a free download for both. This is really handy - my dad did his taxes on Windows, and I did mine on OS X. We were both able to download and use the IL state add-on as well. The advantage that the commercial offering has is the way they could download the latest info easily. Some states don't finish their tax laws until after the software is shipped, so these updates are helpful, to say the least. I don't think an OSS project could be as fast or complete. Tax laws are boring, and no one would do that for free.
This isn't asking for a free-as-in-speech solution to doing your taxes in a pathetically easy way, this is about just doing it for free... as in beer. You're not looking for the philosophically-correct OSS solution, you're looking to not pay anything.
IMO, this is the exact kind of situation where you should have to pay for a program. I figure if you're unable to do your own taxes in some say or pay to have them done, you're too poor, stupid, or lazy to have a job that warrants a specialized program just to look on a chart to see what tax bracket you're in.
Get a calculator from the dollar store, pick up a couple of FREE forms and steal the little pencil they use to write down catalog numbers from the public library, and sit down away from your computer for a couple hours (or if by some miracle you're stupid, poor, lazy AND have complicated taxes, maybe even spend the good part of a day), and do your own damn taxes.
IANAA, but anyone who is dumb enough to not get an accountant to do their taxes deserves to eat the shit they might run into. Stop being cheap and give a good accountant a few hundred bucks and get everything done right. Want cheaper? Go to H&R Block or some similar drive-thru tax service. Anyone who does their own taxes is a fool. I don't care if you make $10,000 a year and file a 1040-EZ, GET AN ACCOUNTANT.
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Why worry with buying and installing software that is MS Only? Just use the web interfaces to H&R Block or TurboTax. Last year I used H&R Block's web site and it worked well with Firefox/Linux. This year I used TurboTax's web site and IMO, it was even better/easier. I had no problems using it with Firefox. Although for some stupid reason they said that Linux wasn't supported so I just used the Firefox UA Switcher extention and change my browser to be Firefox on WinXP and had no problems.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
For those of you who haven't cultivated a relationship with a CPA (I haven't) I find H&R Block to actually be quite useful. Maybe it's just my experience, but I ended up with a state franchise board ex-employee who moved to H&R Block for the personal contacts. She was excellent -- talked me through what I did, asked about various expenses and so on.
Personally, I didn't really think I could depreciate my car as a business expense (or, actually, what the hell depreciation was). She ran the numbers, and, even with the fees, proved it would be cheaper to re-file previous years and take the additional deductions. And, boy, maintaining a home office is a huge bonus -- avoid the commute, the stress, the chattering coworkers, and write off a portion of your rent, utilities, broadband, etc.
I'm happy around a computer (the hardware side, anyway) but I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to taxes. I'm more than happy to have someone across the table explain why I can take this deduction, how to do it, sign their name to it, and offer to back me up legally in a court of law should things go south.
One piece of advice -- take all of your bills, mortgage slips, car repair bills, whatever, and stick 'em in a shoebox to take down to your tax preparer. You don't have to have bills dating back a year (although it's a good defense in case something goes really wrong and you're audited) but a current bill will allow you to make a solid estimate of your yearly expenses for tax purposes. Also, if you do take the home office expense, know the square footage of your home/apartment and the rough dimensions of your office.
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.
Last I tried, TT didn't like Safari, so I used Firefox instead. Like you said, it works on the Mac, but unless they changed it from late January, they're kicking out Safari users.
There are some major benefits to having your taxes done by a certified professional.
.agrippa.
a) If you get audited by the IRS, your tax preparer is the one that talks to them instead of you. The IRS can pick just about any reason they want to audit you, from legitimate inaccuracies/questions they have to the sky being blue that day (ie a random audit)
b) Your tax preparer, if decent, should know more loopholes in the state/federal tax structures that are apropos to you than TurboTax or even you yourself know.
c) The fees you pay to a tax preparer are write-offs for next year's taxes.
I just had my taxes done this week. It cost me $370, which is obviously a lot higher than TurboTax would be. This year I had a lot of tricky stuff including multiple jobs (some contracting), a house purchase, stock sales, etc. Considering she got me over 3000 off my federal/state taxes, I feel that its worth it. Some of the exemptions she used were totally unknown to TurboTax, which I have used in years past.
The tax laws change SUBSTANTIALLY in little ways, every year. So it's necessary to have lawyers work with the programmers and make sure everything is correct. Rules for things like alt min, deductions, etc. all change in little ways. The application coding itself has few changes, but there are some-number-of-hundred tax forms that need to be included, and interpreted, CORRECTLY, every year. That would be an awful lot of monitoring for someone to do "gratis."
And this is completely ignoring the indemnity issue -- if one of the forms in the OSS is wrong and you get audited and your balls busted, you'd be on your own. The commercial implementations typically have a "make it right" clause that will assist you if it's their error, and not yours.
Do their online service, it's cheap. Or you can spend $19 or $29 for the non "premier" version. Premier is a ripoff and has lots of stupid movies that tell you how to save money NEXT year.
I agree. Tax laws are in fact a mathmatical formula. nothing more. The formula is played with on an on going basis to adjust the money collected based on the money being spent.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
If you itemize, tax preparation expenses (going to H&RB or buying software) is a deductible expense. It doesn't make it free (as in beer), but you are not paying out any more than you would in taxes anyway (free as in ipod?), and the money goes to an industry to pay a person, rather than the IRS. Begin open debate on whether you prefer your $70 to go to an "Evil Corporation" or the "Evil Government".
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sales taxes are regressive. We've already had enough of the shifting of tax burdens off of the wealthy and onto the poor.
go to irs.gov and find the tax filing link (or something like that) and you will be allowed to file with HR Block, Turbo Tax and a bunch of other, normally fee charging programs. and they're free. At most you will pay for the e-file fee. But it's still cheaper than paying for the software outright.
Just google for it. I'd rather pay $20 than suffer through an audit.
if you go to irs.gov there is a free file link. The IRS has made agreements with many commercial vendors and you can choose one that will allow you to do it for free. I used TurboTax for free. They will do the federal return for anyone for free but they will charge you if you want them to do your state return also.
that's how I see it anyway . . .
TurboTax Deluxe+State - $34.95 - WalMart.
Once a year, peace of mind, this is a pittance.
Same as 2 Airzookas.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Think about it. If you screw up on your taxes you can get fined and spend some time in prison if it is really bad. Don't you think that it is worth it to pay the $70 for Turbo Tax which is endourced by numerous CPA throughout that country (hell some even use it to prepare filing).
There are sometime when your want a big company behind a product. If I were called to court I wouldn't have a problem telling the judge that I just following the prompts in Turbo Tax and he would probably believe me. Trying tell him that you used GTax or KTax and he'll look at you like your crazy.
Here in Brazil we have free software provided by our IRS equivalent. It has, windows, linux and MacOS versions (last 2 it's Java actually). The java version was released last year as an answer and I think it will become the standard version. We also can do it on paper, by telephone or internet.
Scientia est Potentia
1: How much did you make last year?: 2: Give it all to us
I've used this for the past two years, and I think it's great. http://home.mchsi.com/~taxcalculator/ And yes, I've successfully used and printed this from Open Office. I didn't like Turbo tax because it was tough to play those "what if" scenarios. Like, what if I had made 100 dollars more than I did, or had 12 more kids, etc...
I found a local accountant who handles all our taxes. One year we ran our own using Turbo Tax (as we usually did) and were frightened by the $8k it said we owed. The accountant got us a $1500 refund that year. We've been using him ever since.
My advice? Run your taxes yourself, then try out a CPA (not a random one at H&R)- see if it's worth the extra cash.
According to Reuters, "But some companies, such as TaxAct, offer complete tax prep and filing for free. There are a couple of caveats to add here: To make sure your service is free, you must access it via the IRS Web site; if you go directly to a particular company's site, you may be charged for the same service. Understand that companies aren't just doing this out of generosity: Some may try to pile on extra offers that you don't want or need, or you may wind up paying next year for importing data from this year's free return. And, you'll pay to file your state returns. "
The IRS planned on offering their own free software, but the tax-preparer software industry balked. The compromise was to offer free federal versions to a large section of tax payers, with the option to sell state versions and other add-ons. The Wall Street Journal covered this on 1/19/05 "IRS Web Site Offers Free Tax Filing," but you have to pay Factiva to see the story online.
Well their main screen has a big juicy javascript error. Not sure I'd file my return there.
I know it was a joke, but ...
The US taxes US citizens on their worldwide income regardless of where the citizens are currently living.
So, to get out of US taxes you can't just move out of the US. You'd actually have to revoke your citizenship.
Tax treaties give you various credits however, and minimize your double taxation. But you just end up getting taxed at the highest rate.
If you are just using the EZ form it is a piece of cake to do yourself. If you are doing something more complex - go to the people who do it for a living. I figure that my time is worth something. I have a friend who spent many hours doing his taxes and messing around with some tax software (Turbo Tax I think). Because he had stock options, he had to upgrade to the "premium" software. All-in-all I think it took him about 6 hours to do it himself. It took me an hour at H&R Block. He spent about $50 on software, I spent about $200. To me, it was worth it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
My dad uses it every year, and the state tax version comes with the federal one for free, along with a bunch of other free stuff. TurboTax rules. Good support, updates provided, and it's certified to eFile your returns to Uncle Sam. It's worth buying.
Though you may not admit it, you can't get everything for free, and it won't always be open-source. Deal with it.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
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.
All the tax software in Canada that I've found is for Windows, and I was upset when Intuit said I had an unsupported browser (though it works at my workplace running Firefox on a Windows machine).
But ufile.ca works under Linux, so that's where I choose to spend my money.
How do you do your state taxes?
I never understood why the government doesn't develop a system for people to do their taxes online.
Hire intuit or some other company to develop the system but it makes sense to offer a free way for people to file everything online... both federal and state taxes.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
While it is sure nice to do you taxes for as cheap as possible you also need to ask, is the risk for audit worth the savings?
I've used TurboTax for many years, but turned to an accountant this year, because my taxes are starting to get complicated. It cost $200 to prepare, but they also found more than that in additional deductions for me.
Also, tax preparation costs are tax deductible too.
I've never had the fun of being audited, but my in-laws have and it was a huge effort and problem for them. By using an accountant, I also have someone to turn to in case I get audited as well.
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've started on it already. This should be a good beta:
Wow, two posts today and both are anti-tax rants. Yep, it must be tax season.
If the $69.95 price tag scares you off, you could try snaptax (http://www.snaptax.com/ or, for the Canucks in the crowd, http://www.snaptax.ca/). It's cheap and really fast if you have a simple return.
Can somebody explain what a lazy BOFH is? I can't even come up with a good guess.
In the end, I do not believe that it's realistic for there to be a good quality open source tax program. The big problem is that a huge amount of the work that goes into something like TurboTax is done by professional tax accountants and attorneys. This is not the sort of thing that could be rolled together by a small independent effort.
I could see it as a possibility as a collective effort by a few companies. If there were enough organizations that saw a benefit in having an open source development effort, then they could put together the resources to do it. Having said that, who would benefit from free tax software? Certainly not intuit, or H&R block, or pretty much any tax accountant on earth.
Maybe the IRS could sponsor something like this, but realistically it's far more efficient for them to let TurboTax be the de facto standard. The price for TurboTax is very reasonable compared to the cost of an accountant, especially if you use the web version of their software.
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I've used it for 3 years now, why buy software when you can get nearly the exact same functionality ina webbased app? They transfer your old data from year to year so you have to type practically nothing. They also support importing W-2's from companies like ADP (check processing). Its not OS but its also not a waste of plastic and paper like the desktop products.
What if the IRS encoded its rules in XML? It might be fairly easy to build an OSS engine to ask the questions and fill out the forms. With all the actual tax logic embedded in the xml, the liability for correctness would fall on the IRS where it belongs.
This would be a step in the right direction. Recently I read that if you call the IRS help line there's only a 50% chance that they will give you the right answer.
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.
It's called paper and pencil and the US Postal system. Works every time, and you don't have to pay $70 a year to do it.
You will find that a good tax preparer will save you more than $175.
I used to use software to do my taxes until my wife insisted on using a tax prepared. So for a while I used TurboTax and she sent the TurboTax printouts to the tax preparer - and every time prepared found something that would save us more that the preparation fee + TurboTax fee.
I used to do my taxes by hand, the hard way, before there was a TurboTax. I did not have many complications, no home etc. but back then, there were alot of exemptions and special credits, that it took quite a few hours each year.
About 10 years ago, I began using TurboTax, and based on my experience of DIY prior to that, I found TurboTax to be very thorough and much easier.
Now, 10 years later, I have a home, and a side business and I still use TurboTax. I believe I have enough experience and I do make some effort to follow the tax law changes, that I am comfortable that TurboTax is getting me what I deserve in a lower tax bill.
People who claim... "My refund always exceeds what I would pay the accountant" are misleading. If I prepare my W-4 properly, and make lean estimated tax payments, I can target my refund to be Zero dollars (in theory).
Your refund is your money to begin with. The size of your refund is simply the error that was made in calculating your estimated tax.
You can make it bigger or smaller by changing your W-4.
Some accountants may find money in obscure deductions, like child care payments, that the average user may not know about. Or they might accellerate your depreciation on a depreciating asset, but this is just robbing peter to pay paul, because in future years, you will get a smaller or no deduction because of the accelleration!
I have seen the returns prepared by some "Accountants", and they were done by a tax prep program. So why pay them to plug the numbers into TurboTax?
I realize that I am more detail oriented, and a perfectionist too. And a DIY kind of guy. Doing my own taxes has never been an issue. I honestly do not see how an accountant can "lower my tax bill", which is different from "increasing my refund". I already reap the benefits of tax deductable mortgage interest, Child care deductions and 401K deposits. My medical expenses do not exceed 10% and I don't give to charities.
What else is there?
I would like to hear... What "tricks" were used to get you that bigger check? Or is it that you didn't know that you could deduct 401K payments in the first place?
I have a home, and a business. I use TurboTax standard, not the premium edition (I don't have stock options). State forms are free with a mail in rebate. This year, my taxes cost me $29.00 plus about 3 hours pulling the numbers together, which by the way, I would have to do for an accountant anyway...
Just my two cents...
Of course it takes him like 15 minutes to do my taxes so his hourly rate is actually HUGE :-)
This year, I hired an accountant (and EA: someone why has worked within the IRS previously in a return-related way for five years), paid $700, and definately got my money's worth: he found about $600 in extra refunds that even I, in my pennypinching, hacker-scheeming, diligence missed. (Of course, I expected this level of work, even though the extra refund was a pleasant surprise).
A good tax accountant will provide a 30 to 60 minute consultation session for free that will give you an idea if it is worthwhile to retain their services.
In my case, I'd already researched a bunch of strategies that I thought would work, but they involved the use of tax treaties. I was over my head in tax legaleese and nomenclature, and I needed someone to refute or verify what I though, and get the i's dotted and t's crossed to make sure I filed correctly.
You could've hired me.
I did my taxes and got a $1200 refund
I took it to an accountant and he got me $4800.00
Fine.. but how did the accountant do it?
Did he fudge your medical expenses?
Did he find that you didn't deduct your 401K?
Or did he find an obscure law that says that one legged people with a degree in programming get a $4000.00 credit?
What is it that the accountant found that got you that windfall?
I really want to hear.. What are those tricks?
So far, no-one can say what it is....
It's actually much better than that... in order to be a company that CAN charge for efile you have to give it away to a bunch of people.
Essentially the IRS said that industry had to come up with a way to make it largely free or else they WERE going to come out with a universal solution. And industry said ok.
It's a nearly perfect example of this kind of cooperation between government and the free market.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Just like you do not care what software your bank runs, whether it is open or closed source, whether it is a mainframe OS, UNIX based or Windows, I do not care what my tax service runs on.
Therefore, I go to Quick Tax Web (Canadian version), and use FireFox, and it works like a charm.
At 19.99$ plus taxes, it is cheaper than the 39.99$ that you pay for Quick Tax for Windows. Early bird offers make it 14.99$.
So cheaper, and O.S. agnostic. What more could I ask for?
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Actually, from what I've read if you file with paper the IRS only puts certain key information into the electronic database (usually based upon the budget they have). Then if this limited information triggers red flags then they look more closely and input more information.
:(
This may have changed but it would've only been in the last couple of years. Their information systems are rather old and its a situation not too different from the air traffic control system.
Then the Congress also finds no real reason to fund the IRS but demands a high success rate of pursued tax cheats. This usually means they go after people who are less likely to be able to defend themselves.
What you tax you get less of:
This intellectual ideal fails the second it's applied to what's going on in the world. (reality) Do you want less education, roads and civil defense? Because that is what happens when you apply your ideal to reality.
What you subsidize you get more of:
Subsidies radically distort ruthlessly efficient free-market forces and typically create excess supply that demand never meets. Then more subidies are required to balance supply and demand and it all never seems to work as planned.
Finally, though off-topic, see this objective look as to what segments of society benefited the most from tax year 2002 cuts http://www.numberboy.org/taxcut/1taxcutresults1.0d w.html
(numberboy.org)
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Have any of you bothered to READ the privacy statements and such. I read H&R blocks and basically they can do whatever the fuck they want to will all your information. All these sites that say they'll do your taxes for free (especially the big boys) bend to rules so they keep all your information and if the company switches hands all they're supposed to do is but a tiny statement on the front page saying so (for 30 days) and all of your information will go to the new company under the new companies privacy statement (possibly none at all)
yea... Good luck giving all your info to H&R block. You're going to be screwed in the long run, I promise.
The obvious answer to this is "No". And I really loved the comment where someone said "What about this?" and gave a link to freshmeat that had a bunch of useless stuff that was quickly debunked.
As you may recall in many discussions of the pros and cons of switching from Win to Linux, tax software is always on there. That and the lack of games are the really big software holes that may not be filled for quite a while. The only reasonable solution available (or soon to be) is probably online versions of it through TurboTax.com. Hopefully they are web compliant enough that they can run on other browsers than IE.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
Coding good software is hard enough - coding good software that ALSO correctly applies the Internal Revenue Code would drive anyone batty - ESPECIALLY given constant changes in tax laws and regulations at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels (yes, in some areas of the US we are subject to no fewer than four - count 'em - 4! -taxing authorities). You have to be a tax attorney AND a software engineer, or have them on staff, to ensure you get it right.
In the above cases where mistakes are made, YOU are liable not only for the amount of any deficiency in tax payments but also penalities and interest. Then you can factor in the headache of an audit which may not be limited to the current tax year (you DID save ALL those receipts for those "business" luncheons at Pinky's Pleasure Palace and All You Can Eat Buffet from 2001, right?). Those fees could exceed the base amount of tax you should have paid. What you are REALLY paying for is the paid preparer's signature on the returns. If there is a mistake, you pay only the amount of tax you owe - you are not liable for interest and penalties.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Also, your accountant is not there to plug in the numbers for you. He is there to gauge your level of risk on your business deductions. They are also their to recommend how to lower your tax bill during the year. Maybe you should lease a car. Maybe you should buy things in a certain way.
Remember, an accountant is not just the guy who fills out the forms for the government, he is a resource to help you during the year also. This can be important when you have your own business.
--Keith
Do you want less education, roads and civil defense?
Okay, but you're not taxing education, roads or defense - you're taxing to pay for them. Totally different and it doesn't apply.
Subsidies radically distort ruthlessly efficient free-market forces and typically create excess supply that demand never meets.
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. It sounds like you agree with that part.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
Why would you trust volunteers to produce an operating system?
;o)
Why would you trust volunteers to produce a safe web-browser?
Why would you trust volunteers to distribute food to the homeless?
Why would you trust volunteers to collect donations on your behalf?
Why would you trust volunteers to... you get the idea
brought to you by the letters T... R... O... and L...
For people who make less than $37K per year, you can get your taxes done for free by the IRS sponsored (though not necessarily managed) VITA Program. Some sites have restrictions on how complex a return they can do, but if you have a simple return they will be able to do everything, including e-filing, for free.
The sites varry from charity offices, to law and business schools. When was the last time you got something for free from an attorney?
The same in some cantons of Switzerland. The software is free, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and is written by the gouvernement, covers everything needed. Although you don't send a file at the end, you print out a sheet with a long barcode on it which contains all the necessary data.
The gouvernement provides this software for free, because it saves them a lot of work and money by avoiding to go through hand-written and often wrong filled paper forms.
Here, in switzerland, we've got a software called vaudtax which allow you to do that for free. It's in Java and there is installer for windows, macosx and linux. Maybe it's not OSS, but at least it's free and multiplatform
Why would companies offer free tax filing? What's the catch here?
Ok, found the answer myself. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119660,0 0.asp
The federal tax filing is free. I don't know what nonsense you're talking about with direct deposit - I had my federal taxes direct deposited for free.
Through H&R Block my State filing (MI) was $15 I think, which IMO is reasonable considering they already had my tax information from doing the federal filing. TurboTax was even cheaper IIRC. Again, direct deposit was no extra charge.
As for the AGI, you've always needed that info to efile. I did the signature forms and still got my rebates in 8 days.
I've been using H&R Block's online program since the year it launched, or close -- at least the last 4-5 years. I've never had a problem with it. 3 great things about their online service: 1) It's only $50 total for e-file and direct deposit combined ($30 fed, $20 state). I don't qualify due to income for the free returns posted by a few (many won't if you make more than $75k/year). 2) It's kept as current as any TurboTax or similar software, possibly moreso only because it IS online and bug fixes can be made near-real-time instead of pressing new media. 3) It works FLAWLESSLY with Mozilla (my browser of choice) and FireFox. No need for nasty IE (this has changed in the last couple years. I was forced to use IE for their site originally).
I only mention this because it will be tough to organize such a complex project in view of all the cheap services available. I would gauge doing an Open Source tax project about the same complexity as the kernel. Like all OSS projects down to a smallish number or people doing the work, and unlike other projects it CAN'T be late.
We did ours on H&R Block for free. Under their agreement with the IRS, they are obligated to provide this service for [up to mumble-thousand] users for free. We were not eligible for E-filing, so at the end I got a big PDF of all the forms and worksheets, and had to fill out the forms by hand - all 14 pages of 'em - sheesh.
I think Intuit or whtever they call themselves have the same obligations.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
A federal real property tax replacing an income tax would be extremely regressive. Wealthier people would simply divest of any excess real property they owned and were not renting out. Renters would find the tax passed onto them and middle-class homeowners would see most of the benefits of home ownership be taken away. For most people owning a home is their best and biggest overall longterm investment. In addition it would hurt the housing market a lot which although inflated in many regions, new construction of homes and buildings is a source of some of the best paying jobs for many people.
I think a federal property tax would be even more of a disaster than a federal sales tax that did not exclude food and clothing.
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
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
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Well, at least that sentence does convey information, which its close relative "up to $n and more!!!" does not.
a great free online tax preparation service
Right now you can download PDF files of most tax forms that you can fill in on screen and print. If you have Acrobat, you can save the filled-in PDFs.
AFAIK, not having Acrobat, PDFs have the capability to do spreadsheet-like calculations, and the IRS has been holding off issuing such forms because Congrefs doesn't want them competing with the private sector for tax preparation services.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
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... because they would have to admit that the existing tax code is an internally inconsistent nightmare. My wife is a ten-year veteran at H&R Block. She tells me that in their first class you have to take from them before becoming a preparer, the instructor said something like this:
"If you're here because you want to make sense of your taxes, or of the tax system in general, we can't do that for you - Congress has created sets of inconsistent laws and handed them off to the IRS for enforcement. What we can do is tell you what procedures and strategies have been accepted by the IRS in the past."
This is why filing your taxes can't be a purely mechanical procedure - an expert system based on IRS rules and regulations would prove the equivalent of 1+1 = 3, and explode shortly thereafter.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
The US Federal Income tax, as currently codifed
Doesn't make the natural person liable for the tax.
Would be unconstitutional if it did.
Is illegally enforced.
And many of those people, won't pay it. So my conclusion is you really don't need any income tax software. I don't.
A good place to start reading about the truth of the Federal Income Tax is GiveMeLiberty.org
They have active lawsuits that are making progress. Last month the Second Circuit Court ruled:
"IRS Summonses apply no force to taxpayers, and no consequences can befall a taxpayer who refuses or ignores, or otherwise does not comply with an IRS summons until that summons is backed by a federal court order."
The IRS response in their appeal:
"the Court's opinion threatens to seriously impede the effective administration and enforcement of the nation's tax laws."
Boo-Hoo.
You'd think federal court ruling that essentially strips the IRS of 90% of their scare tactic enforcement power would be news worthy, but don't hold your breathe for the CNN report.
And to the normal "You're going to sing-sing for this" replies:
Just because people suffer at the hands of judges does not mean they aren't RIGHT! It's called TYRANNY you spineless morons!
It's a lot easier to jeer someone for taking action against a dangerous government, then for YOU to enter harms way and stand up for yourself.
There are many free online solutions, here is a list from Alex Moskalyuk's blog http://moskalyuk.com/blog/free-tax-software/432/tr ackback/
TaxAct is good an free. It costs like $15 to file electronically though. Still a lot cheaper than TurboTax or TaxCut.
The question you should be asking is: why is the tax code so complicated and arcane that no self-respecting programmer would touch it with a ten-foot pole?
Sometimes I wonder why legislators don't enter more obfuscated code contests, as they seem to have the concept trained into them at a subconscious, instinctive level.
Taxes: There was a time in American history when taxes and the benefits of those taxes were not directly correlated. That is what you are saying when you claim "Totally different and doesn't apply." Americans had enough of that British policy and started a revolution. Subsidies: If you subsidize a wealthy class they will tend to believe that money just falls out of the sky and spend it just as wisely. I have a feeling in your magical world this wouldn't happen. But, the problem is History has shown that the wealthy class tends to be overthrown by the group left out of the magical thinking party. Closing: Now if you really did study Economics you would know it is a social science. Which is the study of the interaction between individuals and society. See there's a whole "Society" thing you haven't worked into your grand tax scheme.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
There are several web-based version. Nothing free that I know of. www.turbotax.com That one works fine with Firefox, so you don't even have to have IE.
Well alright then, get right on that.
The problem is that a vast amount of legislation is incorporated into our tax code. You know how ever time the Republicans want to offer something as a tax credit rather than as a new pay out? That's just another few gallons of quagmire for our tax code.
Let's say that tomorrow we had a flat tax. What would happen to:
* Deductions for children
* Deductions for interest on home loans
* Deductions for business expenses
There are thousands of little deductions that have been put in there over time for purely political reasons. Tossing it out would have some pretty harsh ramifications. The effective price of homes and hybrid cars would go up. The effective price of having children would go up.
A flat tax is a simple solution to a complex problem which means, in the end, it doesn't really work.
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That time of the year is upon as again: Tax Season. Where we all enjoy reading about someone moaning that they can't find Free or Open Source tax software.
Tax preparation is a classic case where OSS doesn't work: a tedious problem, lots of state-by-state variation, huge sets of rules that are constantly changing, customers that need hand-holding because they don't understand the underlying rules, and the result is just numbers, not something exciting like a game or yet another media player.
Programmers aren't motivated to provide tax software for traditional OSS principles. The only way to get people to do this is to pay them.
First: Do you really need the "Premier" version? Unless you have unusual circumstances or your own company you can probably get by with the "Deluxe" version which is $34.99 at Costco. Costco gives you a $10 instant rebate so it's $24.99. You also get the State Tax free after mail-in rebate and free e-filing after mail-in rebate. So for Federal, State and e-filing I paid a total of $24.99. And I had my refunds about 1 wk after filing. Pretty painless and cheap.
The thing is - I don't mind paying for software. One of the problems I see with OSS/GPL is that although I get tons and tons of great software for almost no cost, it also turns people against paying for ANY software.
Something like TurboTax is worth it, I think. I mean, like you said, it does take a bit of effort to make sure your software has every single applicable tax law set up, and it needs to be accurate. While it IS software, it's also a service.
I really feel as though the core components of computers need to be free, and open. This would include the OS and the key applications like browsers. But add-on specialty software doesn't HAVE to be free. Turbotax is one of these things.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
1) You may qualify for the free federal filing service provided by one of the two dozen or so members of the Free File Alliance but your state filing will cost you the coin if you use those providers to also file your state return. Calculating a state return is pretty easy once you have the federal numbers are in hand.
2) Many states do offer a free state filing system but the inconvience of having to file twice ( 1 fed and 1 state ) doesnt appeal to the vast majority of the public. They would just rather get it done over with. I would guess to say that over 80 percent of the state returns completed online yield a refund. I would also say that of that 80 percent, close to 90 pecent were filed before Feb 15.
3) States in the past have had to suffer with the bully tactics use by the Free File Alliance. ie
State X. If you develop your own online system we may just eliminate the support for your state filing in our system.
In this day where tight budgets are requiring state tax agencies to do more with less, just a small warning shot from the Free File Alliance scares the hell out of them. This and the fact that it may cost 100 - 200K (1000 - 2000 hrs @ $100 using open source) to design,test and implement an online state system, keeps alot of them from entering the ring.
I know must would agree that private enterprise would probabally do a better job implementing a solution vs. a state or federal entity - myself included.
You are not looking for an open source application because this is something that you do only once a year. You are looking for a way to do your taxes using your existing FLOSS platform.
How about your browser? Sounds good.
Try http://taxactonline.com
Very thorough, fast and accurate and all you need is Mozilla or Firefox.
You can try it for free. Heck, if you don't want to e-file you can just take the pdf file that they give you at the end, print it and send it in.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
CA state tax can be filed for free here
Its takes about 10 mins to file it
A sophisticated Excel spreadsheet for federal
income tax which can be easily loaded into
OpenOffice is found here:
http://home.mchsi.com/~taxcalculator/
This does not strictly conform to Open Source
standards, but it is a free software solution to
the tax preparation problem.
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.
Something that is comparitively easy to acheive, though, is not paying into your taxes from your paycheck throughout the year - no, I am not suggesting dodging your taxes (though my personal view is that the whole income tax thing is unconstitutional, that it was never properly ratified, etc).
What you do is this: Don't have *any* taxes taken out of your paycheck, and instead estimate what you will owe at the end of the year. Each month, take out an equivalent amount (ie, the amount you figure divided by 12) and put it into a high-interest bearing account (if you can figure out a way to put the whole lump sum in, even better). Now - throughout the year until tax time, that money which is rightfully yours is earning interest for you, instead of being deducted from your paycheck, given to the g-men, who in turn put it into their own interest bearing account.
When tax time rolls around, and you have to pay the piper - pull the lump amount out (ie, write a check or something) and send it to the IRS. The interest you have earned is yours to keep (though you will have to pay taxes on it, of course, since it is income - they just love to screw ya!). If you want to take it a step further, invest the amount into an off-shore tax-free haven account (tough to come by these days) - then you won't owe money on the interest, even...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
bc and OpenOffice should do the trick! :)
(No, seriously, I do my taxes with a calculator, pencil and paper. It's not hard, it's just time-consuming. Also, FYI, last I heard TurboTax was requiring you to submit your personal financial information, tax info, etc. to their company. I don't know about you, but I see absolutely no reason why TurboTax needs to know my financial life, and thus refuse to touch TT.)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
what does this mean? only thing makes any sense is BIG OLD FAT HOG somehow i'm not sure this is what the poster meant. or did they? LMAO! (laughing my ass off) ;-)
Here's a free Excel spreadsheet which covers US form 1040 and a number of related schedules. It's done a good job for me. http://home.mchsi.com/~taxcalculator/.
You make an excellent point. If I were the head of IRS, I'd use this very point as an argument to Congress allow IRS to propose a normalized (consistent) ruleset, and adopt the changes. Once they accomplish that (yeah, right!!), then whenever a proposed new law would violate consistency, then IRS could inform Congress so they could revise it prior to adoption. There are reasonable ways to deal with objections by taxpayers and filers who like the existing ambiguity, which I own't go into here.
Of course, this raises the question of whether the tax code is not just complex and inconsistent, but a complete axiomatic system per Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem. If so, then it is literally impossible to "fix it". Nevertheless, a reference application would be a great tool to study the problem.
(Godel's theorem says, informally, that any consistent axiomatic system has undecidable propositions. For example, "This sentence is false.") (For a good read, try Hofstader's book Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.)
PS - My ex also worked for H&R Block for a few years. According to her, H&R Block returns tend not to get audited as often, because they tend to be correct more often. I know that shortly after we met, she found almost $10,000 in errors by my expensive tax accountant over the previous three years!
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
There is a free Canadian tax filing software called Taxman. Can't vouch for it as I've never tried it.
http://pacificcoast.net/~gthompson/
If you have a business in Canada you may write off tax preparation fees and expenses. I don't know if non business owners can do the same.
- $600/month payment
- $500 maintenance
- $1500 improvements
You seem to be assuming that my "income" from this property would be simple - $12000. However, in fact, I've spent $9200 to make that income. So you might say I could deduct my expenses - i.e. $2800.But wait, it gets worse. The $1500 I spent putting in a swimming pool increases the value of the property - presumably by $1500 (although in practice it's less.) Do I pay taxes on that $1500 or not? Or do I pay taxes on the amount that the installation of a pool increased the value of my property? Or what? And, while we're at it, I'm getting some equity for my payments. Do I get to deduct the whole payment, or just the interest?
The point I'm trying to make is that your proposal would only make sense if income were as clear-cut as someone making a salary. It's not.
As I see it, the basic problem with an income tax is that it inevitably renders the calculation subjective. There are so many weird little accounting questions that MUST be dealt with that there will always be opportunities for the wealthy to "game" the system. The advantage of a sales tax which excluded necessities (i.e. food, medicine, etc.) would be that it would (a) encourage capital investment by discouraging consumer spending and encouraging saving (b) disambiguate the tax code and (c) keep the government's nose out of my business.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
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.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
We declare our taxes via internet.
n _f iscal/declaracion_anual_2004/117_5315.html
http://www.sat.gob.mx/sitio_internet/informacio
And the software is developed by the Tax office. No excuses.
I've been using ufile.ca for the past couple of years -- web based, totally OS-agnostic.
$19.99 for my wife and I (Canadian funds!).
It's pretty well designed: pleasant user interface, the option to save and resume the session, automatic shuffling of expenses and receipts between us according to who gains the best advantage, and electronic filing at the end. What's not to like?
Is there not a similar service available to those south of the 49th parallel?
Some accountants may find money in obscure deductions, like child care payments, that the average user may not know about. Or they might accellerate your depreciation on a depreciating asset, but this is just robbing peter to pay paul, because in future years, you will get a smaller or no deduction because of the accelleration!
You forget the time value of money. More money for me THIS year is more valuable to me in the long term than getting that money in a LATER year, because I can put it to use earning more money and also inflation means money NOW is more valuable tham money LATER.
I have been using TaxAct for the last 3 years and have been fairly happy with it. I downloaded it 15 mins ago and started preparing my taxes. I am shocked to find that this time the free version is CRIPPLED. It only lets you file simplest (as was not the case in the past) tax returns. I moved from one state to another and I cannot use it now. I was probably going to buy the state version but they have started playing games. I do not trust them anymore and decided not to use the software now.
Actually TaxAct for Federal returns is FREE; you essentially are buying only the state version for the price of 19.95, and it even includes one free electronic return. If your state has no income tax, you don't even need to buy software.
After the fiasco with TurboTax a year or two back, I'm really surprised that anybody who is bright enough to post on slashdot would bother with it.
You can file state taxes for free on line at http://www.marylandtaxes.com
I found that the tool works well, and that the state employees were helpful and interested in my feedback on the user experience.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
First I've heard of this. Can anyone tell me if this is legal?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?
Rather, it is the gathering of source data regarding income and deductions (W-2s, 1099s, the "basis" of investment assets sold, evidence of business expenses, etc.). Once such materials are gathered, it is trivial either: (i) if one has a simple tax situation with few potential deductions, to fill out the "EZ" versions of tax returns or (ii) if one has a slightly more complex situation, to pay a tax preparer $50-100 to prepare the more complex forms (and, if one has significant deductions, hiring a tax preparer will be well worth the small fee).
Efforts to promote flat rates (or, even worse, sales or value-added tax) as tax simplification are an attempt to trick those who are less well off and less sophisticated into reducing the tax burden on the more affluent. If you think lowering the tax rates on the most well off is a good idea, by all means advocate it, but do so explicitly and don't try to trick people into supporting it under the guise of liberating them from a little mental effort.
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I use spreadsheet to set up calculations for taxes. Not much changes over the years except for added/removed fields, so one day set-up was all that was needed.
If you want something beyond filling and computing numbers, like advice on what goes where, of course no software can help you on that. You need accountants.
They have their own web application that you can fill in online, in addition to allowing you to upload your returns from the commercial software packages.
;)
And it works in Safari under Mac OS X! SO I assume it'll work under Firefox too, but I've not tried it yet (last year, Firefox wasn't stable enough for me to try
Mark
PS And it's easier than doing it on paper, because it supresses all the questions that aren't relevant any more - so when you say 'I didn't sell any shares this year' it stops asking you about it and jumps to the next section. Easy!
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