Ok how do you do state taxes in this? I don't see California option. Also no privacy policy on the hosted one, you really think people will trust giving their sensitive information like that?
Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
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Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#12Ok how do you do state taxes in this? I don't see California option. Also no privacy policy on the hosted one, you really think people will trust giving their sensitive information like that?
Right now only federal taxes are implemented but state taxes are in the works! The site is implemented client side & no external API calls are made so the code in the repository is the only thing that would be touching personal information.
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#13Suggestion: Add support for Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. If the trend is remote work, focus on the remote workers who would prefer not to pay income taxes.
No offense but I think they should be focused on common scenarios (income types and deductions that are likely to have many users), methods of verifying correctness, and long term maintainability in the face of a changing tax code.
Expat workers seem so niche and there may be different requirements depending in their specific situation.
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#14For the past ~decade I've mostly been using OpenTaxSolver, a file-based open source US tax utility. It's worked for my uses. It'd be appealing to try to factor out the underlying translation of the tax code and IRS form layout into some very simple DSL that could be used by multiple kinds of software.
I agree, at some point I may try to factor out the tax calculation portion and add it as an external npm package or similar.
The only similar thing I could find was https://www.npmjs.com/package/taxee-tax-statistics but that package has some security vulnerabilities and does not seem to be actively maintained.
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#15Related fun (and sad) fact: In Norway, the tax submission forms are online and so user friendly that you don't need a tax filing program like this. Edit: Here is a link to an explanation for the form, in English, which was revamped in 2020: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/tax-return/tax-r...
The submission form is essentially a wizard that asks you questions related to your situation and your past year. Depending on your answers, it expands different parts of the form. Other parts, such as tax exempt donations are automatically filled out based on information that the recipients filled out for you.
I visited the UX department of the Norwegian equivalent to the IRS (Skatteetaten), and they had almost every device you could think of (eye-tracking being the most fun). No wonder they made good forms.
I understand that some people object politically to taxes, but as long as it's one of the certainties of life (death being the other), I cannot understand why filling out the submission seems so hard in most countries...
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#16Thank you for starting this. It's something that needs to exit!
I don't usually comment on typos, but that one could be confusing. I assume you meant "needs to exist", is that right?
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#17Related fun (and sad) fact: In Norway, the tax submission forms are online and so user friendly that you don't need a tax filing program like this. Edit: Here is a link to an explanation for the form, in English, which was revamped in 2020: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/tax-return/tax-r... The submission form is essentially a wizard that asks you questions related to your situation and your past year. D…
the good reason: some people are philosophically opposed to easy taxes - people should be painfully aware of the money they are giving to the government. (sort of like folks who have VAT complain about advertised US retail prices which don't include tax)
The bad reason: Lobbying by intuit and parties to prevent easy tax preparation. Their ROI on regulatory capture is very very good.
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#18For the past ~decade I've mostly been using OpenTaxSolver, a file-based open source US tax utility. It's worked for my uses. It'd be appealing to try to factor out the underlying translation of the tax code and IRS form layout into some very simple DSL that could be used by multiple kinds of software.
I agree, at some point I may try to factor out the tax calculation portion and add it as an external npm package or similar. The only similar thing I could find was https://www.npmjs.com/package/taxee-tax-statistics but that package has some security vulnerabilities and does not seem to be actively maintained.
You could just reuse the code from opentaxsolver and run it through emscripten. Here's an old version I made a few years ago: https://github.com/jfim/1040.js
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#19Related fun (and sad) fact: In Norway, the tax submission forms are online and so user friendly that you don't need a tax filing program like this. Edit: Here is a link to an explanation for the form, in English, which was revamped in 2020: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/tax-return/tax-r... The submission form is essentially a wizard that asks you questions related to your situation and your past year. D…
In Sweden, the employers are responsible for reporting your income and banks your profits on sales of stocks, funds, and real estate. So "doing your taxes" is, for most people, just logging in and saying "yes" to the computed value. You can even just send a text to do so.
Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp
#20Related fun (and sad) fact: In Norway, the tax submission forms are online and so user friendly that you don't need a tax filing program like this. Edit: Here is a link to an explanation for the form, in English, which was revamped in 2020: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/tax-return/tax-r... The submission form is essentially a wizard that asks you questions related to your situation and your past year. D…
In Sweden, the employers are responsible for reporting your income and banks your profits on sales of stocks, funds, and real estate. So "doing your taxes" is, for most people, just logging in and saying "yes" to the computed value. You can even just send a text to do so.
That is pretty much the case in Norway, too. You don’t even need to say yes. Silence is taken as assent. But if you do need to go beyond that, it is just like GP wrote.