Open Source Tax Products? 719
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?"
Re:This dpesn't seem likely (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Aditionally... WTF???!?!?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Good job there, buddy.
Re:This dpesn't seem likely (Score:5, Interesting)
We are paying taxes precisely so that the government can do public service projects. This strikes me as a reasonable one.
Re:This dpesn't seem likely (Score:3, Interesting)
This is really comes down to one of the major problems with OSS: Only (well, mostly) technically-minded people work on them, and hardly anybody from other fields. But you need those people, and not only for designing icons and such things, but also their input on how things should be done.
Re:Not So Much. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Free federal online tax preparation and e-filing for all taxpayers. No restrictions. Everyone qualifies."
Some free filings do have restrictions, but some do not. If you can't get free as in speech (with taxes, you won't) you might as well get free as in beer.
* If you go to the tax prep sites directly, you may not be able to get the same offer. You have to go through the IRS site.
Open Tax Solver and Freefile (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [irs.gov]. 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.
Re:There is always one option (Score:3, Interesting)
I already paid, it comes off my payroll. I want my money back.
Given that they owe me a huge wad of cash, the government might actually be quite happy if I didn't file.
As an aside, in Ontario where I live, there is a checkbox at the end of the tax forms asking if I want to donate all or part of my refund to help pay down Ontario's public debt. If I filed on paper, I would probably add a checkbox saying "Like hell, you greedy bastards", and check that one.
I'm dying to find somebody who actually checks that box every year, because I have some land I want to sell him.
use taxAct online (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Re:Aditionally... WTF???!?!?!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Link: http://www.receita.fazenda.gov.br/PessoaFisica/IR
There is also a Windows specific version (http://www.receita.fazenda.gov.br/PessoaFisica/I
It is in their interest to ease people's lives in filing their tax forms (it increases tax collecting...).
So, at least, no expenses in software solutions. And, yet, there is also the on-line form solution.
Re:Anybody with half a clue... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q
Re:This dpesn't seem likely (Score:2, Interesting)
Eliminating the income tax would eliminate a huge web of corruption. I don't care how we replace it, maybe with a federal sales tax excluding food and clothing, but it's got to go.
Hey, IRS! Do an OSS reference application (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
Don't Do it! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This dpesn't seem likely (Score:3, Interesting)
I, too, would love to move to a simple federal sales tax over an income tax so long as the 16th ammendment - the 1913 ammendment authorizing the income tax - were repealed in the same ammendment that authorizes the national sales tax. (And, yes, I think that it should take an ammendment to authorize a national sales based on the constitutional powers granted the federal government.)
I fear that without repealing the 16th ammendment first, we'd end up with both kinds of tax.
Re:Aditionally... WTF???!?!?!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
benefits (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Here we do it on paper, internet or free software (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just do it! (Score:1, Interesting)
I have two small businesses. I get 1099-MISC's for one of them. I pay estimated taxes throughout the year. If the market's doing good I don't pay them and pay the penalty instead.
I have foreign investments (I have to deal with Foreign Taxes Paid).
I invest in REITs (real estate trusts).. they throw off like 6 kinds of incoming, including dividends, return of capital, and unqualified section 1250 gains. I have to use all the schedule D worksheets. REIT dividends are never "qualified" like the dividends from companies because REITs don't pay federal taxes.
By the time April rolls around I have a shoebox full of, not receipts, but 1099's!!
My taxes are very long and complex. But I love to do them! (Yes, I'm one of those 1% that like filling out forms, you gotta problem with that?) I have some LISP programs I wrote that help me with some of the stickier forms (like the long version of the estimated tax penalty
Occasionally I have a tax person look at it. All the tell me are ways to be dishonest ("aggressive" is the term they use) that the IRS won't flag.
It takes me an afternoon to do my taxes at this point (I also do them for other people sometimes!).
I don't think it's for everybody, but if you attack taxes like a home improvement project, or doing landscaping, etc., it's not bad at all.
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Interesting)
ufile.ca for Linux users (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:No federal sales tax! (Score:2, Interesting)
Turbotax Online (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This dpesn't seem likely (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it may be hard for an open-source program to do all of the tax code. Tax law in USA is enormously complex. It's vague in certain areas. Every rule has an exception, some of those exceptions have exceptions to them, and then even those on occasion have exceptions. Every year the law changes, so you may not get to reuse algorithms from last year.
There's also the fact that if something goes wrong, the user may be royally in trouble. Do you want someone to end up owing enormouse penalty fees or going to jail because of a bug in the open-source tax program screwed up his return? Would an open-source program have tax lawyers involved in quality checks, to verify it is correct, and to interpret the vague parts of the law? What happens if such an interpretation of a vague detail is disagreed with by the tax court?
I worked at H&R Block as a tax preparer a few years ago. I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't wan tto be involved in writing software that produces correct results for all users, and I certainly wouldn't want to have to deal with users complaining their tax returns got sent back by the IRS and they're now facing audits and other unpleasantness. I wouldn't want to be an open-source coder possibly facing lawsuits or IRS investigations if anything goes wrong.
I am annoyed with TaxCut though. I had a question about something this program did for my tax return this year involving depreciating an item that broke and I threw in the trash, I didn't understand their calculation in this case. Their customer support refuses to answer this kind of question, using the excuse that such an answer would constitute tax advice, and they (H&R Block owns TaxCut) do not give tax advice. They told me I must go to a tax professional to get an answer to my question about their own product's calculation. If H&R Block doesn't have qualified tax professionals to answer a question about a calculation done by their own product, well, let's just say I won't be recommending this program or its producer to my friends anymore... And they have money to hire "tax preparers" and lawyers to verify the software, or at least the different software they use in their numerous offices to serve customers with.
Am I overly paranoid? Maybe. If there's guys out there that were willing and able to make a complete tax preparation product and hire lawyers to interpret things and approve results, that'd be cool. I'm just not very optimistic that I'll be able to use such an open-source product for my own particular tax situation any time soon.
Asking the Wrong Question (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Re:Actually... (Score:1, Interesting)
It's not whats illegal as much as what the average person can get away with......
It's sort of like being 21 buying alcohol for your 20 year old friend. Sure it's illegal, but REALLY what are your odds of getting caught?
Granted, that was before my 60 hours of community service.
Not one useful answer so far: Try this... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:No federal sales tax! (Score:3, Interesting)
Or how about another one. I make $100 and scrimp on everything so that I can put $60 of that into very high risk investments (like my business or a startup) and end up making $1000 while you spend all your $100 each time you get paid - why should I pay more tax for all the risk I took while you took none and made none?
Re:umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
>software? It sounds like you have a crapload of
>forms to deal with. Isn't your sanity and time
>worth another $70? Just curious. It is for me, and
>I'm a long time do-it-yourself.
Well, the year I worked at H&R Block after taking their classes to learn some tax stuff, I ran my own return through their store software. Retail price, over US$400. $70 is noticably less than $400-some to pay another H&R Block employee to do it again, since I no longer work there to get it for free. My main complaint of that whole situation is they listed two rental property-specific classes, but these two classes ere not offered in my district, so I'm left with a few holes in my tax knowledge that weren't covered in the classes I did take, including my peculiar depreciation thing. I did the whole H&R Block thing as I was tired of paying their fees and wanted to become a do-it-myself guy.
I have since spent a couple hours trolling through the IRS web site and found something that seems to make sense with their calculation results on this peculiar item. But I don't think I should hav had to. I bought a Tax Preparation product, they should help me use it, and help me understand what it calculates and why, as I consider those "functional elements" of their product.
I was just anything but impressed when their customer service explained that they do not offer "tax advice", or that they at H&R Block do not have anyone on hand QUALIFIED to answer tax questions, that they only support the "functionality" of their product. When I questioned the correctness of their product functioning to calculate that number, they wanted me to take my taxes elsewhere. So I'm planning to request a refund, and in the future go elsewhere as H&R Block/TaxCut advised me to do, and leave them out of it.
And by the way, I checked out their product packaging at the store yesterday. Nowhere on the box does it say anything about a disclaimer, refusing to answer "tax advice" topic questions at customer support... I haven't searched the EULA or anything, but I believe that sort of thing shouldn't be hidden inside a package only to maybe be found after they already have my money... Anyone I know will of course learn of this without buying another Taxcut package/download first.
I'd love to see alternative programs, because I have reasons to not buy TaxCut or TurboTax (The whole secret big-brother install thing a year or some ago), I'm running out of options. But considering a company with as much money as H&R Block refuses to offer tax advice in fear of being wrong and sued (my assumption, they didn't give reasons as to why even when I asked), I'm not optimistic that open-source hackers will take on that much legal responsibility or liability. I may look up TaxAct as I've seen mentioned around, and I really don't like the idea of hand-calculating depreciation tables for 43 items... (Furnished rental housing)
The approval question (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, you also have to get approval from every state you want to be able to support state returns for. 1 [state.az.us], 2 [state.nc.us], 3 [discoveringmontana.com]
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.