Ask HN: Are there any good open source tax software projects?

#1

Post by ashin » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any good open source tax software projects?

#2

Post by tothrowaway » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

If a rich person shorts Intuit stock, spend $5-10 million developing a really slick tax program, and releases it for free, could they break even?

They could make it a charity, and the $5-10 million would be tax deductible on top of it.

At that point, maybe Intuit wouldn't have the motivation to keep the tax code complicated. Then we could move to a simplified system at the speed of congress.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any good open source tax software projects?

#3

Post by ghgdynb1 » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

If there aren’t any such projects, now might be a great time to start.

Prior to reading ProPublica’s exemplary reporting, I had no idea how truly duplicitous some of the market leaders can be.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Re: Ask HN: Are there any good open source tax software projects?

#4

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

tothrowaway wrote: post #2

If a rich person shorts Intuit stock, spend $5-10 million developing a really slick tax program, and releases it for free, could they break even? They could make it a charity, and the $5-10 million would be tax deductible on top of it. At that point, maybe Intuit wouldn't have the motivation to keep the tax code complicated. Then we could move to a simplified system at the speed of congress.

I think the sticking point is that during that transition you have to have people to release the constant updates that currently happen. Maybe they can be volunteers, but maybe not.