The site seems down but I really want to see how someone was able to fit the entirety of the US tax code into an Excel workbook.
The excel1040 site is/was just a redirect to https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home
Open Source Tax Software
11–20 of 265 posts
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#12The US government provides this online for free. Only the edgiest of edge cases aren't supported. You can e-file your federal return with this regardless of how much money you make. You still have to do the calculations yourself. But you don't have to use paper.
https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#13No way would I ever trust open source tax software not to mess things up somehow. The paid software has a big incentive to get it right.
Do you not trust any opensource software and prefer only paid software to build your systems?
Guess who is going to get pulled into court when someone's taxes get screwed up and the IRS comes after them?
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#14Here's the GitHub repo of one of the projects mentioned in the article: https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#15No way would I ever trust open source tax software not to mess things up somehow. The paid software has a big incentive to get it right.
Open source can be paid.
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#16No way would I ever trust open source tax software not to mess things up somehow. The paid software has a big incentive to get it right.
Obligatory reminder that libre software need not be $0.
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you not trust any opensource software and prefer only paid software to build your systems?
Guess who is going to get pulled into court when someone's taxes get screwed up and the IRS comes after them?
> the IRS doesn't consider accidental mistakes as fraud. A case for intention has to be made before the IRS actually charges you with a crime.
It's relatively easy to screw up your taxes by misentering a number into the paid software as well. The various guarantees the paid software people offer don't cover this sort of situation. I don't think this is really a factor.
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#18The US government provides this online for free. Only the edgiest of edge cases aren't supported. You can e-file your federal return with this regardless of how much money you make. You still have to do the calculations yourself. But you don't have to use paper. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
Right. But doing the calculation is pretty hard for most people. Add that to the risk associated to making mistakes and most people will probably prefer paying a bit and have a “””guarantee””” that there are no mistakes. (I don’t disagree he. Just pointing it out.)
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#19I worked on tax software and have seen these kind of efforts. Noble, yes. Short lived, yes.
It’s relatively easy to make a free 1040 file. The real problem comes from all. The. Edge. Cases.
1) do you support xyz state? 2) what if I lived in multiple states? 3) what if i…
And on and on.
And it’s not just one and done. Every year IRS and states are changing their shit so you have to go thru and make all kind of updates and verifications every year.
It takes an army to build and maintain. Generally not the kind of thing for open source (unless they’re paid). But then what’s the point? One may say it’s more transparent, but TurboTax etc are transparent with their formulas - you can check every box they fill in for you.
I think the only thing that can really disrupt this dynamic are “free” commercial software (like credit karma now cash app), or government provided.
Re: Open Source Tax Software
#20I use https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/ to submit my 1040 every year. It’s recommended by the IRS if you know what you are doing.