Ask Slashdot: Open Source Tax Software?

An anonymous reader writes "I finally started looking at my taxes and instead of handing over my personal information and money to TurboTax I was wondering if there were any recommendations for freely available/open source tax software? Ideally, the data would be stored in a portable, open format. I wouldn't really need a GUI, but something that filled out PDF forms would be nice." It's a question that just won't go away. Open source solution or not, if you're a U.S. taxpayer, the deadline for filing is nearly to hand.

Comments

For this you want a professional product

[CoderExpert]

Seriously, this is the kind of product that is done with help of lawyers and accountants, because it is really complicated. Specialists rarely work for free with open source products. You really don't want some 18 year open source coder's "product" (who just filed his taxes for the first time and quickly coded up something) for this. They just don't understand all the different tax laws and practices, especially in some corner cases. And it is YOU who will be responsible when the program gets it wrong. Using open source instead of a program made by professionals with the help of accountants and tax professionals is incredibly stupid!

Re:For this you want a professional product

[alen]

no, the reason turbo tax costs money is they have teams of accountants translate new tax laws in every state into easy to fill out forms and the math functions behind them

Re:For this you want a professional product

[SJHillman]

Also, TurboTax's online tool is free if you make under $31,000 (about $14.90/hr at full time). My girlfriend did it that way - it's called Freedom Edition or something.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Tyr07]

Actually it was a good reply and worth taking note.

Just because 'hurr hurr derpa no free software that does all my taxes for me' isn't what you were hoping for doesn't make it useless.

They were correct. This is highly specialized software for a specific purpose operated based on state/country/province etc.
It's not something I recommend trying to cheap out on without doing the work when it comes to the government.

Keep in mind, the question basically asks 'Is there a way, I can stop paying someone else to do my taxes, and do my taxes myself, without paying anyone, but not have to do my taxes myself, and have free software do it for me'

That's like me saying, 'Is there free software that does my job for me but doesn't cost me anything and I still get paid for working'
Now, it may sound sarcastic, but if that software existed, I'd definitely be using it.

To sum it up, specializing in government revenue regulations is something unlikely to find for free that does everything related to them for you.
There's open source software like, calculators available. Even free spreadsheet software. That's all tech, which makes sense to find open source.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[autocannon]

Yes, go use some free open source "stuff" to file your taxes. Hope it works, hope it's accurate. Oh, and hope they update it multiple times every god damn year to keep up to date with the ever changing tax code. But hey, it's free right. Why would anyone want to actually support software developers by "paying" for software.

Seriously, what is the obsession here with people wanting everything for free? You want to do your taxes for free, sit down with the paper form and do them. If Turbotax is too expensive for you, try TaxAct. It was $20 to efile both state and federal this year.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Sarten-X]

As a great fan of open source and community-based development, I have to sadly hang my head and agree.

I have some investments that, due to their particular details, have stumped multiple tax preparers. The (professional) software I've looked at doesn't even support this particular item, so I have little hope for my beloved open source. Even if there was a community-developed tax program, I personally wouldn't trust its accuracy over time. Yes, I could go through myself and verify that all of the year's changes to the tax laws were made to the code base, but I don't have the time for that. The commercial software often has some kind of guarantee of accuracy, where if they screwed it up, they'll at least help set things right with the IRS afterward.

Now, if there was a community-based organization offering such a guarantee, and asking for donations to support it, and employing the lawyers and accountants to verify it, I'd be all in favor... I simply don't know of any such entity, though.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't take long for that 18 year old coder to respond.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[jeffmeden]

Actually it was a good reply and worth taking note.

Just because 'hurr hurr derpa no free software that does all my taxes for me' isn't what you were hoping for doesn't make it useless.

They were correct. This is highly specialized software for a specific purpose operated based on state/country/province etc.>

This is true but no one has yet mentioned that there IS a free (as in beer) way to do your taxes: obtain the necessary (freely available) forms, read them, understand them, and complete them. There is even phone based help if you have specific questions, as well as many books available at your local library. There, your tax forms just got filed without spending a dime! If you don't want to invest this time or don't want to take the risk of doing them incorrectly, then supposing that a free option would be satisfactory is kind of laughable. It's like (oh yes, we do love our similes) wanting seat belts in your car (oh yes, we do love our CAR similes) but not wanting to pay for them, and still wanting them to be just as safe. Surely, by now someone made something that was just as safe but was also free, right?

Re:For this you want a professional product

[sconeu]

It's a 1040 EZ. The whole point of the EZ form is that ANYONE could do it.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[TheRaven64]

Oh, and hope they update it multiple times every god damn year to keep up to date with the ever changing tax code.

I think you've identified the real problem. It's not that there is no open source tax software, it's that your tax system is so complex that it requires software to file the return.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Joiseybill]

@sjhillman .. "freedom edition" +1 informative
@AC "FUD" -1 NOT
@Loughlia " ...can send you to jail" .. You do realize it is much more likely that you'll just get an interest-bearing permanent debt.
            The IRS and Student Loan providers will work backwards from your Social Security death benefit of $300-ish if they have to. Only in rare cases, where the headlines serve a purpose more than the recovery of the money, - or if there is malice or fraud, does someone actually get jailed on taxes.

and .. the IRS will help with your taxes, also for free.
    http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=202121,00.html .. and the IRS offers links to other "free" filing services, this one works for income up to $57k.

"free" = at no additional costs to the taxes you already presumed to be paying
---
If OP just wanted to fill in forms on a PDF manually - there are dozens of products, including tediously creating a text box in Open Office for each line and item. In fact, the IRS already makes the PDF forms fillable: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
  Actually doing the calculations is where the liability and problems come in.

In my limited experience, making a calculation error or omission on a return set off a chain of events;
first, they re-calculate your taxes and settle up on their terms; then you are a whole lot more likely to be audited for the next 3-4 years.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[pla]

Seriously, this is the kind of product that is done with help of lawyers and accountants, because it is really complicated.

BS. I have a 9-to-5, have a mortgage, play in the stock market, do contracting on the side, and do my own taxes. And I'd say I've just described more than what 90% of US taxpayers need to file. And seriously? Mind-numbingly easy. Painfully easy. Embarrassing-that-professionals-do-that-for-a-living easy.

Doing ones own taxes involves nothing harder than "add up all the box 2s on your W2s and box 4s on your 1099s and enter that total on line 62 of your 1040". Totally mechanical crap that doesn't require the least bit of thought or familiarity with tax law. When it comes to deductions, you just ask yourself the four or five applicable "nope, can't take that" questions, and throw away those that fail. Only the IRS's annoying insistence on rearranging the damned forms every year makes automating all that crap non-trivial.

Hell, it annoys me that most of us even need to file, since the IRS already knows everything we tell them. We should only need to file a Schedule A come April, and even that only if we wouldn't have otherwise taken the standard deduction. By the end of May, they could just send us a bill or a check, or rarely, a request for more information. Done.

Yes, if you run an S-Corp with substantial foreign assets, you'll probably want to talk to a expert. For the rest of us, don't try to make this sound harder than the reality. Plug and frickin' chug, baby!

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Joiseybill]

Edit: "this one works for filing up to $57K" : http://www.irs.gov/efile/index.html
    sorry~!

Re:For this you want a professional product

[jeffmeden]

For complex returns, that may be correct. But there's no reason there can't be an open source product with consists of nothing more than an electronic version of the forms which allows you to type rather than print and which automatically does the math (on the forms) for you. Then it either prints or electronically submits the return. It's no different from picking up the paper forms and filling them out yourself. You're responsible for selecting the correct forms, knowing which laws apply, etc.

As amazing as this seems, the IRS (and many state and muni tax agencies) have in fact figured out how to produce a form-style PDF that can be filled in ENTIRELY electronically. The IRS does make you do the math yourself, but I am sure you can find an open source calculator to help with that, right? Many state and munis seem to do this better, with forms that run all the math for you and can be submitted electronically. And believe it or not they even make them easy to find via Google. The wonder of it all!

Re:For this you want a professional product

[sribe]

Everything you said PLUS tax software must conform to an extremely rigid release schedule, where neither dates nor functionality are negotiable at all, which is not something I've ever seen from open source.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[jtownatpunk.net]

Man, poor people get all the breaks.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[dalias]

Actually, the IRS translates the tax laws into forms, schedules, and the (albeit written in a backwards, ugly procedural form) math formulas behind them. If you download and read the instruction PDFs for the forms you need, it's pretty direct and mindless to follow the steps and fill in the numbers...

Re:For this you want a professional product

[quixote9]

Seconding TaxAct. Cheapest and best. Does not phone home, as far as I know. It's the only reason I still have to have a virtualbox Windows taking up space on my drive.

I've been looking for a reliable, complete FOSS alternative for years. I think, as others have said, it doesn't exist because nobody (me included if I knew how!) would do that kind of tedium for free.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[alexander_686]

First, it’s not Turbo Tax which is lobbing for this stuff. They don’t have too. There is enough lobbyist pushing their special interest and crack pot positions searching for short term gain that they don’t need to spend the money – it’s done for them.

Second, It’s not that it’s technically difficult; it’s the Certification and fast turn around time.

It’s not like a word processor in which you can start off with the basic stuff and add stuff later. Nor is it static like a word processor – each year the IRS tweaks stuff. You kind of need the whole package up and running – perfectly - by February 1st.

At least they make the on-line software free for the easy, low income, returns.

That being said, I would like the IRS to come out with some basic tax forms which do the calculations and look up by itself. i.e., you would still need input the numbers, but the simple “multiple by 28%” and “Look up income in tax table” would be automated.

Or even better, tax simplification. Less work spent on make work, fewer loop holes to abuse.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize there's more to many peoples' taxes than the single 1040-EZ you have to file... right?

If you think that you can simply "follow the steps" like it's a mad libs, then you're either overpaying (in which case, thanks) or underpaying (in which case, pay up) on your taxes.

But then, it's always been the case that those who know the least grossly overestimate their ability and competence.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[mcavic]

It's not mindless. It's a lot of arithmetic, and a lot of questions to ask the user. Also, IRS's regulations and instructions aren't written in a way that most people are used to reading.

Yes, I could do my taxes on paper if I had to, but that doesn't mean I can write software to do your taxes.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[CoderExpert]

What BS? I was talking about making tax software, not filing your own taxes. When you're making tax software it needs to account for all possible scenarios, and it needs to be kept up to date.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Bert64]

Well, since the government defines the taxes, in the interest of its citizens the government should also provide a no frills open source (BSD or such) implementation of the tax code... Third parties could then build better interfaces (facilities to import from other sources etc) on that, while knowing that the base code complies with all the applicable rules and submits the requires end data to the IRS.

For the government to set arbitrarily complex tax rules, and then force you to pay third party suppliers to clean up the mess it forces on you is wrong.

Everyone should have a free, government supplied and transparent way of completing their taxes.

Personally i wouldn't trust a closed source package at all, since i cannot verify what its doing.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[rssrss]

I am a lawyer. I used to do my taxes myself without purchasing a tax program. I wrote a spreadsheet to do the calculations, because doing them by hand was tedious, complicated, and error prone.

One year in the 1990s I did my taxes using my own spreadsheet. A few months later, I received a letter from the IRS explaining that I had miscalculated my taxes, that they had recalculated them, and they were enclosing a check payable to me for the $1,100 that I had overpaid.

In that moment I realized that I could no longer rely on my own efforts and understanding to complete my tax returns. If I had left $1,100 on the table, I had probably left more than the IRS would tell me about.

After that, I started to use tax programs. I use H&R Block At Home, but I am sure that Turbo Tax is also useful. At any rate they are a lot cheaper than paying too much taxes.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Jane Q. Public]

Year after year, the IRS has proven in independent tests to be incompetent at understanding their own rules. Only a fool would allow the IRS to "help" them with their return.

Besides, if you use some third-party product, you have some liability protection. If you use the IRS, you don't.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[pla]

The IRS does make you do the math yourself, but I am sure you can find an open source calculator to help with that, right?

Year after year, the IRS lists simple math errors (including transposition errors) as the single most common problem they encounter with returns.

Given that PDFs can have semi-active content (Hell, they support full-blown Javascript) for input validation, why not USE that feature to reduce their most common problem?

Going further, why not include all the common tax forms in one file, so it can update fields between those forms as you go, and exclude the blank ones at print-time? So far, talking about nothing more complex than one-line triggers on a few key fields. Bam, enter a half-dozen numbers in the right places, and hit "print". Total prep time, 30 seconds.

You might well ask, then, why they can't add a simple wizard to semi-intelligently ask for those half-dozen numbers - But to answer that will cost you $40, payable to Intuit.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Americano]

Actually, he said "this type of product" is created with the oversight of tax lawyers and accountants. And he's right - because writing software to calculate all of the arcane nuances of tax stuff is something that requires fairly detailed knowledge of the tax code, and how it works.

There's a difference between "everybody needs a tax lawyer and an accountant, no matter how simple their particular return may be," and "writing generalized software that implements (correctly) the interacting tax codes of 50 states plus the federal government, and covers all of the non-standard, rare, and strange situations that can arise for small numbers of people requires specialized knowledge that a tax lawyer and/or accountant needs to provide."

There's already free, and easily available tools for e-filing a simple 1040 EZ and many state tax forms. Presumably, the poster has a more complex tax situation - and in that case, he'd be a fool to not want a product that was created with feedback and insight provided by tax experts.

But yeah, your strawman was pretty nice too.

Also: people who want the software are by definition very much NOT interested in doing it themselves, they are specifically seeking to outsource their need to understand the tax code to someone else who has figured out how to add, subtract, multiply and divide all of the right fields in the right order to get the right number at the end. The people asking for software may be *capable* of doing it themselves, but they are most explicitly not *interested* in doing it themselves if they're looking to outsource the job to someone else's software.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Brannoncyll]

I've had to do my taxes by hand for the past 2 years because I am a non-resident alien, which most software is unable to handle. Isn't it nice that they give the hardest job to the people who know the least about the tax system in this country?

Although most of the work is straightforward, there is a lot of terminology that has to be learned. For example, your residency status at the federal level is determined differently at state level, so you have to go trawling through the 70 page 'how to fill in' documents to find out which you are. For the deductions and exemptions I probably understand only half of what they mean. For example, one of the NY state exemptions is for 'Refund of QEZE credit for real property taxes'. Real property taxes? As opposed to imaginary property taxes? There's one called 'cost depletion' - what on Earth does that mean? The net result is that I probably know more about tax than a lot of American citizens!

Re:For this you want a professional product

[pla]

What BS? I was talking about making tax software, not filing your own taxes. When you're making tax software it needs to account for all possible scenarios, and it needs to be kept up to date.

Except, you don't need to handle everything - You just need to know the program's limitations, state the big ones up front, and alert the user when they run into one of the less common ones.

I suppose this may count as a matter of interpretation, but I didn't take the FP's question to mean "why can't IBM file its taxes in 46 countries using free software", but rather as "why does the typical American have to pay the Intuit tax just to stay legal?"

Re:For this you want a professional product

[alen]

except i don't want to fill out any forms. turbo tax takes the info i type in and makes up completed forms automatically. very nice when your tax returns are 50 to 100 pages like mine

Re:For this you want a professional product

[jimicus]

I don't think it's so much that as the principle of the thing.

By demanding you file your tax online yet not providing a half-sane product to do this free of charge, the ability to file a tax return is itself subject to another charge that you can't easily avoid. Effectively, another tax.

We have something similar in the UK - companies are legally obliged to file their tax returns online by submitting a file in a particular format. The format itself is open and based on XML, but pretty much the only things that support it are commercial applications aimed at the accounting industry. Which means you are forced to pay an accountant even if your affairs are simple enough you could easily fill in the forms yourself.

IIRC they may also have a form online you can fill in. Haven't checked lately...

Re:For this you want a professional product

[HapSlappy_2222]

TaxAct is also pretty transparent. My girl uses HR Block's deal, and it blows in comparison, and cost her almost $100 to use. TaxAct also lets me print the actual forms that would are submitted to the IRS, and it's cake to use since it stores last years tax info AND outlines what's different from last year. Been using it for 5 years now and hope it stays cheap and accurate.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[HapSlappy_2222]

I have some investments that, due to their particular details, have stumped multiple tax preparers.

They never tell you this part of being a drug runner, do they? No, it's all "see the world" and "make people happy!". Sigh.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Joiseybill]

BS. I have a 9-to-5, have a mortgage, play in the stock market, do contracting on the side, and do my own taxes. And I'd say I've just described more than what 90% of US taxpayers need to file. And seriously? Mind-numbingly easy. Painfully easy. Embarrassing-that-professionals-do-that-for-a-living easy. ...
Doing ones own taxes involves nothing harder than "add up all the box 2s on your W2s and box 4s on your 1099s and enter that total on line 62 of your 1040". Totally mechanical crap that doesn't require the least bit of thought or familiarity with tax law. ... ...
For the rest of us, don't try to make this sound harder than the reality. Plug and frickin' chug, baby!

@pla: +1 because you are a 1%-er. ( intended as a wake up; I can't afford the 1% moniker, maybe I'm in the top 10)
    Sure, for the /. audience, the "algorithm" of following the instructions, including branches.. plugging & chugging when we fill in variables, and making an informed decision on deductibles - is all likely within our grasp.

However, look around at the rest of the country.
Most Americans cannot balance a checkbook [1], [2].

The basic tax guide "Publication 17" is over 300 pages long. [3]
The instructions for the basic 1040 form is at 100 pages [4].

Just answering the questions "What's New?", "Do I have to file", and "Where do I file" ( [4] pages 6-7) incorporate 4 more pages of tables and worksheets referenced in the text ( pp 8-11), and suggest the taxpayer review 10 separate publications for clarifications, outside the 'core' paperwork of Pub 17 and 1040 instructions.
  point: it is complex, even to "just follow the instructions". Not everyone is the sort who just jumps in, presses ON, and only looks for manuals after it doesn't work. ( I am.. but not everyone is.)

If you are lucky enough to have a job, and a mortgage, play in the stock market, and do contracting on the side.. you are a pretty smart and fairly motivated person. You can multitask. You can prioritize tasks, and see projects through to the finish.
Only 58% of the US population is employed.. or 42% is not. [5] - BLS report " population/employment ratio" .. when it comes to the word "unemployed", the US Govt needs to take a lesson from Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”

Never mind making educated decisions about deductions like work expenses and medical costs. I don't think the average American could fill out the typical medical insurance claim form, never mind read one and extract information for tax purposes.

How many Americans - picked "at random" - would you trust to balance your checkbook, or to fill out your tax forms?
Heck, I don't even trust a "jury of my peers" to render a sensible verdict.
Most folks I have met can't follow a 2 -page recipe in a cookbook, or remember the plot to a 200-page novel unless the movie and/or starred Heath Ledger or Megan Fox.

If every citizen was encouraged to do their own taxes, imagine how much WE taxpayers would be paying to clean that mess up?
Don't give people more credit than they deserve. Look at our last few elections.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Qzukk]

I'd say that what turbotax etc is great for is telling you is WHICH forms you have to fill out.

For a couple of decades I didn't bother with any software and did everything by pencil and copied the result in ink and mailed it in. This meant filling in all the different worksheets and calculations, only to find out that I don't qualify for form 123XYZ or the AMT doesn't apply. This took 4-5 hours.

I went to turbotax's website the other day and by going step by step and answering the questions I finished my taxes in about 2 hours. It could have been cut down even further by asking more questions up front ("did you sell any stock? No? Then you don't have to worry about half this crap on gains and losses") and then following through on those questions by not making me go through pages of questions about alimony, child support, etc. etc when I told them I was single and had no kids up front.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[muindaur]

Oh yeah, just look at the Self Employed tax forms you need to file if you run a business: Sole Proprietor, LLC, or Partnership. Those are such a complicated mess that you could easily screw something up. It's the reason there is quick books software to do most of the tracking for you. Lets not forget the taxes you have to pay on employee wages.

How many people realize that the taxes taken out on the W2s aren't the only income taxes paid?

Yep, every business that pays wages has to pay taxes on the wages they pay, and it won't ever show up on a paycheck or W2 because they can't take them out of employee pay. Instead they reduce their employees. This is one of the reasons small business owners are pushing for lower taxes, and the reason that lowering taxes WILL improve the job market. It just has to be a reduction on the PAYROLL taxes companies pay. I think there are also penalties for layoffs with FUTA, so they won't risk hiring in an uncertain economy if it will cost them money to let workers go.

Small business also need to go through EVERY expense they make, and follow the federal depreciation table for assets (can't use your choice of GAAP methods on taxes.) If you use your personal vehicle for taxes, or part of your home (I'm an accounting student so this was even more important to learn since many rural accountants have an office built into their home.), you need to figure out how much of that use was related to business. So you need to calculate the square footage of the office space, then get the percentage that is for the entire house.

So I completely agree that taxes are not easy to follow.

Re:For this you want a professional product

[edremy]

Year after year, the IRS has proven in independent tests to be incompetent at understanding their own rules. Only a fool would allow the IRS to "help" them with their return.

In all fairness, they aren't the IRS' rules. They are Congress', and the IRS has the thankless task every year of trying to figure them out.

Back when I was a postdoc living in Canada I kicked a tax question about my return all the way up to the corporate HQ of H&R Block. (My mom has worked for them for ~30 years and called in some favors) The end result? They had no idea. It came down to exactly how you read one incredibly obscure clause in the thousands of pages of US tax code, and if you gave the wording to 100 people 50 of them probably would have picked one interpretation and 50 the other.

(I picked the one that zeroed out my taxes for the year. I didn't get audited.)

Re:For this you want a professional product

[Grishnakh]

Personally, I don't believe in paying more money to file taxes. Plus, e-filing makes the IRS's job much easier. Why should I do that, when I can instead send in paper forms and give them a hard time, and save money in the process?

Re:For this you want a professional product

[dbkluck]

It is, however, Turbo Tax which is lobbying for the IRS not to publish their own web-based E-Filing software:

Steve Ryan, a lawyer for the tax-preparation industry who negotiated a deal that has the IRS promising not to set up its own Web portal for e-filing, says his argument was simple. "When the government becomes my competitor," Ryan says, "then I have every right to run an ad that says 'Big Brother is watching your keystrokes.'"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9112083 I nearly choked when I read that. "Big Brother is watching my keystrokes"?! WTF? Of course they are, that's the point. They're not just watching, they're recording every value I enter into the form, so they can keep it in a file with my name, address, and social security number on it, and then use against me in a court of law! They get the exact same information if I use TurboTax, the only difference is TurboTax gets to watch my keystrokes, too, and then charge me for the privilege.

Open Tax Solver

[rbowen]

Here's one: https://sourceforge.net/projects/opentaxsolver/

Having said that, I have found that paying a professional has always been a worthwhile investment. I have a masters degree in mathematics, so it's not a question of the calculations, but my accountant knows things about tax law that I don't, and keeps me from getting audited while getting me the best refunds that the law allows.

Re:Open Tax Solver

[Kenja]

More then that, in most cases if you get audited H&R Block etc will represent you and try to get it cleared up.

Re:Open Tax Solver

[PenquinCoder]

With 207 downloads in 8 years, and 71% recommendation rate (5/8 users recommend this product!) how could you possibly go wrong. There's even a screenshot from 2004 (which looks like it's from 1994), so you know you're using a quality up-to-date product.

You should learn to read a bit.

207 downloads (This week)
Take a look at the timeline

Re:Guessing not..

[SJHillman]

Liability always falls on the person filing the tax. Even with commercial software like TurboTax. This is why Intuit, H&R Block, etc offer liability protection and audit assistance as a selling point - to help reduce your actual liability.

Fun Fact: Even if the IRS screws up, the taxpayer is still liable.

Excel 1040

[n1ywb]

It's sort of open source, as open as an excel spreadsheet goes anyway. Works fine in OpenOffice Calc. I've been using it for years, haven't been audited yet.

http://home.mchsi.com/~taxcalculator/

Re:Excel 1040

[ddd0004]

It's ok to use Comic-sans if you center align all the elements on the page. It's a case of two wrongs making a right.

Not Open Source, but at least it's free

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a CPA and I would recommend using taxact.com. While it's not open source, it is free for any income level (for federal filing) and user friendly (if you can ignore the upselling of the deluxe version along the way). Given the frequency with which the tax law changes, it's doubtful a FOSS solution will emerge in this segment.

Government should give away such software.

[couchslug]

Tax compliance is in Federal interest, and with standard Free and Open software everyone could use the same application.

Re:Government should give away such software.

[Leafheart]

Starting last year, I begun paying US tax (I'm a non-resident Alien so I pay both the US tax and my home country taxes, in this case Brazil) and I find it mind boggling that there is not a government software for these. Specially since the US tax code is arcane and byzantine, and in some cases borderline ridiculous. It explains why there is such a huge industry behind tax filling there.

Here in Brazil we have had an official tool for the past 8 years IIRC. Done in Java also, so you can run pretty much everywhere. And also, unless you have a bloody ton of special cases, you really do not need a pro to help you do your taxes. Even on cases like mine, where I had to put what was payed on international taxes and calculate whatelse is left and possible discounts, I still do not need to deal with even a tenth than I have to deal with the US tax code. And that is because I'm simply barred for most of your discounts.

The Main Barrier

[utkonos]

The main barrier is that tax software is different every year. Each year the tax code is changed then published. This published tax code is not readable by mortals. It is read by tax lawyers who work with the tax prep software makers to make sure that this years tax code is reflected in the tax prep software.

As much as I love FOSS, I doubt that a volunteer community would be able to pull off this level of complexity and do it on time each year.

Being that it would be a community effort, what happens if the guy who is in charge of component X gets a new job and can't devote his time to getting that component out the door on time. In most FOSS communities this is not a problem. That component just doesn't get worked on until someone picks up the torch later on. In tax prep software this would be a showstopper. The whole thing would grind to a halt if the whole piece of software does not reflect accurately the current year's tax code.

Re:The Main Barrier

[Yaztromo]

The main barrier is that tax software is different every year. Each year the tax code is changed then published. This published tax code is not readable by mortals. It is read by tax lawyers who work with the tax prep software makers to make sure that this years tax code is reflected in the tax prep software.

As much as I love FOSS, I doubt that a volunteer community would be able to pull off this level of complexity and do it on time each year.

Then factor in that each jurisdiction has differing tax codes. Open Source works really well when developers have an itch they need scratched, and can find other similar developers from a diverse community. I may be an expert developer with decades of experience, but would you really want a developer (i.e.: not a tax expert) from British Columbia, Canada, writing tax algorithms for someone in Texas?

Taxes are different from other OSS problems in that there are thousands of different jurisdictions, with completely different tax rules and requirements. This seriously fragments the development community, and restricts the userbase. I'm not sure if you could extract sufficient commonality (other than "requires math") to even create a generic tax-software base upon which country-specific tax information could be fed (a sort of tax meta-language, if you will) -- at least not without some sort of significant standardization between countries, states, provinces, etc. Which isn't going to happen.

Specialized and expensive domain knowledge + fragmented developer base + fragmented user base + constantly changing domain == bad fit with OSS software development. You'd probably need a government entity backing the effort with sufficient specialized staff to even make it plausible.

Yaz

IRS Site has Free Options

[mikestew]

If your main criteria is "freely available" and not "open source", and your adjusted gross income is less than $57K, you can just fill out the forms for free. It uses Adobe Flash if you have an aversion to such things, and there doesn't appear to be anything open source about it.

If your AIG is more than $57K, your tax situation is probably such that you ought to be handing over some money to a pro or Turbo Tax.

Lots of free options for Canadian tax payers

[Walking The Walk]

I realize most of you will assume this question is USA related (I see the firehose story got tagged with "usa" quite quickly), but it applies to lots of other countries too. In Canada, we're supposed to use NETFILE certified software, most of which is free up to a certain income threshold. The Canada Revenue Agency has a list of all software certified for your 2012 filing (i.e.: 2011 tax year). Some of those same companies are probably certified by the IRS for filing taxes in the USA too.

Re:Calculations

[TaoPhoenix]

IANAMM (I am not a Master's in Math). I find the calculations in tax law rather evil-hard. It's a different kind of hard that "higher math" - it's the numerical interlocks that are brutal. I'm rusty so I'm making this up as pseudo-taxcode, but stuff like the sentence below are typical *easy* tax law!

"You own a rental building and rent 2 units out to tenants and live in the third. You bought the building first as part of a partnership then later acquired the whole thing, so your basis calculations are already a little strange. You run two small businesses out of your house. One of them qualifies for the Office In the Home forms. Your truck is 40% business one year and 60% business the other year because you have obligations that only arise every second year. Because you took accelerated depreciation on your truck, you cannot also take accelerated depreciation on some of your office in the home assets. For six months you also ran a day care service in that office-in-home. You are divorced but you won stock in the divorce settlement as substitute for alimony. That stock has split twice and then merged separately."

Blecch.

Re:Guessing not..

[jtownatpunk.net]

And the gubmint gets to level fines that would be illegal for anyone else. Had a friend who was a few months late sending off state taxes of $113. Got a penalty/interest bill for $107. Wish I was joking. Try and put a 95% penalty into a promissory note and watch how fast it gets laughed out of court.

Re:A recent urban legend

[Daetrin]

Well it's at least half true. A couple years ago i just filled out my taxes the usual way, just copying numbers over from my W2 form into the appropriate boxes in the EZ whatever form. (I'm pretty sure i'd already started using FreeTaxUSA by that point, a service which seems perfectly adequate for the basic job, if not spectacular.)

As expected when i was done i found that i would be getting a moderate refund. (I try to set up my deductions to make sure that happens, the amount of interest i'm theoretically losing is pretty tiny, and the extra pain i'd have to go through if i found i owed more just isn't worth it.) So i hit "send" and promptly forgot about it. Then a couple weeks later i got a letter from the IRS telling me they'd corrected my taxes. Needless to say i was rather freaked out when i started reading the letter... until i got to the part where my new refund was about one or two hundred dollars _larger_ than what i'd come up with on my own. (And no, it wasn't a nice round number like the special "rebates" they keep giving us.) I don't know if i screwed up the math somewhere or just missed a really obvious deduction, but whatever it was the IRS caught it and decided i should get more money.

I have no idea how dependable that is, and i certainly don't expect them to catch all the deductions possible for people with a more complicated tax situation, but it seems if the IRS notices a problem they will correct it, no matter whose favor that mistake is in.

The tax code should be DEFINED that way

[alispguru]

An amazing amount of ambiguity and crap in the tax code would go away if the Government were required to publish a program in Java (probably best balance of portability, capability, and specification) and that program WAS the definition of the tax code.

This would have the nice side effect of keeping lawyers who can't think formally (in the mathematical sense) away from tax law.

Re:A recent urban legend

[Whorhay]

That sounds similiar to how Chuck Norris does it. He just sends in a blank copy of the form with a photo of himself, crouched and ready attack.

Manufactured by unskilled labor

[rpresser]

I have a fantastic tax preparation system: Mark Frenchell. And the best part is it was built using a very small company of only two people: Howard and Josephine Frenchell.

My government does my taxes for me

[F69631]

Seriously, what is the obsession here with people wanting everything for free? You want to do your taxes for free, sit down with the paper form and do them.

Where I live, the process goes like this:

AT THE START OF EACH YEAR: The government send you your tax card. It tells you your tax percentage, etc. (based on assumption that you earn as much as you did the previous year). You take that to your employer, he pays the taxes directly from your wage and there is nothing more you NEED to do. If your income is very different than it was the previous year, you get taxed the wrong amount and the government sends you either returns or a bill at the end of the year. If you know your income has changed and don't want a large bill/can't give the government any money temporarily, you can fill out a simple 1 page (2 sides) form that they sent you with the card (or submit it online) and then they'll send you a recalculated tax card.

DURING THE YEAR: Most people don't need to do anything. If your income changes a lot and you don't want to pay the government any extra (which they would, of course, return at the end of the year) or don't want a large bill, you can call them, visit an office or fill out the info online and they'll send you a recalculated tax card.

AT THE END OF THE YEAR: They tell you that they want to either return some money (and ask you to inform them if your bank account number has changed) or they send you a bill. Again, you get a simple 1 page (two-sided) form (or can fill it out online) to tell them about anything that might affect the decision (such as having earned/lost a lot of money by trading stock or any similar things).

For example, I got a bit better paying job last year but was too lazy to inform them so they now sent me a letter "You've earned more than we thought you would, so you've paid 790 euros too little taxes. Here are two bills of 395 euros, you have six months to pay the first and twelve months to pay the second. Here is a form you can use to complain if we've made any incorrect decisions." I might fill out the form because I've spent quite a few euros to buying stuff that indirectly helps me earn income (books to get certifications, etc.) and that sort of stuff is tax deductible. I don't expect to reduce the bill by a lot but it's going to take just 3 minutes or so, so why not.

I've never understood why does USA have such a complex system that the government doesn't know how much they should pay taxes...

http://www.excel1040.com/

[Maxo-Texas]

http://www.excel1040.com/

Free, works in open office, has been doing this for 15 years.
Produced the same results as professional software.

Probably not good if you have some new tax activity in your life until you see it done right once.

I.e. "This year, for the first time, I'm doing my own taxes".
I.e. "This year, for the first time, I started buying and selling stocks".
I.e. "This year, for the first time, I started renting property to others".

The form is there- but you have to know to fill it out and how to fill it out.

I used it in Openoffice or Libreoffice and it worked great. I have a complicated return and have been doing my own returns for the last 15 years. This sheet made it much easier than doing taxes by hand. It took under 2 hours to do my taxes.

Highly Recommended.

Re:The phone based help

[Attila Dimedici]

Not only that, but if that guy from the IRS that you called for help gets it wrong, you are still liable for any penalties that accrue from following his advice.

In Canada at least

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Not open source, but free (as in Beer) is Studio Tax http://www.studiotax.com/ which is netfile certified