The Future of Tax Software on Linux?

mengel asks: "So this last week, I repeated my annual ritual of trashing my scratch partition, making a FAT filesystem on it, booting Microsoft Windows(tm), and installing tax software to do my taxes. I had hoped, with the advent of Xandros, and of Linspire (formerly Lindows), that one of these increasingly important commercial companies would have talked someone like Intuit, or the Tax Cut guys, into developing this years tax software against Wine, so that it would also run on Linux under Wine as well as on MSWindows. So what has to happen before the companies who write Tax Cut and TurboTax will do versions that least run under Wine, much less native Linux versions? What can we do to help make that happen?"

"Tax Preparation is the only reason I boot MSWindows anymore, and each year it gets more arduous, as soon I'm going to be forced to upgrade the MSWindows partition to XP, just as a few years ago I had to upgrade from MSWindows 3.1 to MSWindows 98 -- so in effect my tax software costs me double, because I keep getting forced to buy a newer MSWindows upgrade every 3 years or so as well as the tax software."

the software is a crutch, and it breaks

[klossner]

It beats me why an individual taxpayer who knows anything about programming would use tax prep software. I did my taxes by hand, along with separate state and federal returns for each of my three kids, in less than the time it took you to set up a Windows environment and get the software running.

Anybody who can follow instructions like "subtract the lesser of lines 14 and 16 from line 18 and enter the result on line 21" would be better off following the hacker creed and doing it themself.

Straightforward enough

[Otter]

As Ask Slashdots go, this is almost as easy as "My school's network is insecure. What should I do about it? Should I sniff passwords and publically post them?" earlier this week:

Use Linux. Insist on Linux software and *buy* it when it's available.

There's no conspiracy here-- those companies do MacOS ports because Mac users make it worth their while. As long as the US desktop Linux base remains tiny and as long as most of those users can dual-boot and are willing to buy the software, what's the value for them? Especially since you know the remaining Linux core is a) going to complain that it doesn't run on Gentoo or LFS, b) berate them for not making the whole thing open-source and c) too cheap to pay for it anyway.

There is one huge upside, in that there will *never* be a good free alternative, so if a userbase exists, products will emerge.

Financial Incentive

[greenhide]

So what has to happen before the companies who write Tax Cut and TurboTax will do versions that least run under Wine, much less native Linux versions? What can we do to help make that happen?

The companies need to believe that they will make money if they release versions for Linux. Currently, there just aren't enough users who only use Linux to encourage tax program companies to devote resources to making compatible versions available.

Also, consider the Linux culture, which generally eschews proprietary software. It's pretty much impossible for a tax preparation sw company to release its source code, so you'd have to use binaries. That could lead to compatibility problems between different variants of Linux. The thing is, if you write an application for Windows, you mostly only have to worry about writing it for two flavors of Windows: 95/2000 and XP. It's a known quantity. At this point, most companies just have to change the rules from the previous years, and can keep most of the GUI and interfaces intact.

Right now, there are some 25 million Mac users (supposedly) in the US, and there's one (TurboTax) preparation software application available to them. I'm guessing there's far fewer than 100,000 users in the US who use Linux and a Linux-based desktop exclusively in their home, and a great many of these people use the Linux desktop because they don't want to spend any money on an OS. <joke>A good portion still live in their parent's basement, and don't have much of an income to speak of.</joke> All considered, 100,000 is a very low number.

Two questions:

[vasqzr]

#1

I did the TurboTax software on the web. Doesn't it work under a Linux browser?

#2

Wouldn't it be easier just to have a tax preparer do them for $40, or is your time worth that little?

Re:TaxCut for the Web

[Electrum]

Looking at the cost of "Tax Cut for the Web" prices on their site it's cheaper to have my taxes done by a local tax firm.

Then it's also cheaper than the stand-alone software. Problem solved.

Big refund = interest-free loan to government

[flockofseagulls]

If you're getting a big enough refund to be anxious about it, your are already doing your taxes wrong by having too much withheld. You should adjust your withholding (allowances) so you get the money in your paycheck rather than in the form of a tax refund.

You're better off owing $100 or less on April 15th than overwithholding all year and then figuring out how to get that refund a few days faster.

As for the simple math required on the tax forms, what a lame excuse! Get an $18 printing calculator. Go over the numbers twice. The IRS will check your calculations and correct them anyway, and in that case you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting a reduction or increase in taxes. For small discrepancies resulting from arithmetic errors you won't get into any trouble, they'll just send a refund or a bill -- don't you think they get LOTS of those already?

If you're going to defend the big refund by saying that it's a great way to save, it's not. Set up an auto-withdraw savings plan with your bank, credit union, or U.S. Treasury in the form of savings bonds. Overwithholding is just an interest-free loan to the government, and then when the "windfall" check comes you're probably going to blow it rather than save it anyway.

Re:the software is a crutch, and it breaks

[angle_slam]

It beats me why an individual taxpayer who knows anything about programming would use tax prep software

Ease of use maybe? Actually following instructions is easy. But it's time consuming. TurboTax does it for you already. For a really simple return, you can be done in 2 minutes. For more complicated returns, it does the thinking and calculations for you: should you itemize? Enter in your deductions and it will determine that for you. Are your medical expenses more than 7.5% of your AGI? TurboTax will automatically determine that and enter the information for you. Do you have to pay AMT? Turbo Tax automatically calculates the AMT once all your data is in.

It's just much faster than doing it by hand. You don't have to worry about making an addition mistake. You won't make a mistake in looking up the tax owed. You can file electronically and get your refund much faster. It will automatically transfer your information to a state tax return. It is more readable than hand-written returns. You can forecast next year's taxes and print out an appropriate W4 (I did this last year. If not for unexpected income, both Federal and state would have been within $50 of what was withheld). If you have your own business, it will do your estimated taxes. It will tell you of your options with basically anything you can think of. I'll never do taxes by hand again.

Of course, if you have to buy and install Windows to do this, you don't save much time. But for a person who has a Windows machine, TurboTax (and the like) have great advantages.