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Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

incometaxcalculator.net.in

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Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#31

Post by briandear »

damoncali wrote: post #16
dylanjermiah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to keep TurboTax and its derivatives in business somehow :)

I've always wondered what would/will happen when the tax code gets so complicated that nobody can understand it, and we have to rely on a machine to interpret it. A sort of brave new world where the inputs are collected by computers, the tax is calculated by computers and taken by computers, all understood only by a small cadre of tax coders. Kind of scary.

Milton Friedman explains tax code complexity brilliantly here:

http://youtu.be/TruCIPy79w8

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#32

Post by petercooper »

The British equivalent: http://www.listentotaxman.com/

Only for people with normal jobs or self employed though, doesn't take things like capital gains or dividends into account (but these have nicer rates than normal income anyway, so it's good as a worst case calculator anyway.)

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#34

Post by gt5050 »

Splendor wrote: post #33

> "TDS Deducted from Salary" It would be helpful to explain initialisms like TDS for those who don't know.

Tax Deducted at Source, basically the employer deducts the tax before making the payment to the employee

More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Deducted_at_Source

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#35

Post by Kluny »

burke wrote: post #28
damoncali wrote: post #12

How depressing is it for us in the US that the Indian tax code is simple enough that someone can "show HN" a tax calculator.

Interesting sidenote: In Canada, our tax rules are of a similar complexity to yours. The CRA (~IRS) publishes this document, which makes it relatively easy to compute income tax and other deductions: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4127-jan/t4127-15e.pdf

Related, there is an excellent webapp called simpletax.ca, which I've been using to do my taxes for the past few years. It's the most painless tax process I've ever had, so I love it, but it only works on returns going back to 2011.

Every year I seem to have at least one friend ask me to help with their taxes - typically someone who hasn't done theirs in 10 years or more, has no idea where to begin, and whose situation is getting worse every year.

So I always ask the simpletax people to add previous years, even offering to work for them or volunteer time, and the answer has been the same. A very prompt, polite statement that the tax code changes way too much every year and it is logistically impossible for them to cover past years.

I can only assume they're telling the truth and that the problem is impossible for them right now. But it deeply irritates me that the Canadian government doesn't issue its own (free!) software to make it possible for people with the best of intentions to comply with their laws.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#36

Post by learnstats2 »

petercooper wrote: post #32

The British equivalent: http://www.listentotaxman.com/ Only for people with normal jobs or self employed though, doesn't take things like capital gains or dividends into account (but these have nicer rates than normal income anyway, so it's good as a worst case calculator anyway.)

Even if you're self-employed, it doesn't take into account National Insurance quite correctly.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#39

Post by rk0567 »

chdir wrote: post #25

Nice. However I must ask, the official tax department's site has been revamped and added a very slick calculator [1] a few months or maybe a year ago. Is there a good reason to prefer yours ? However, if you are an expert in tax rules, here's something I'd pay money for - clear tax guidance in the form of a decision engine, where I can feed my inputs and get an accurate interpretation of the tax rules. I will pay for…

> Is there a good reason to prefer yours ?

Maybe not, yet. But over a period of gradual improvement, it may offer something unique to certain niche. e.g beginner users, who would prefer a tax calculation tool with a clear and easy to understand step by step guide, followed by some tax related advise etc (something similar to what you've recommended). Thanks.

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