161–170 of 265 posts
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I can confirm that. I once had a problem with business tax, called them and I was surprised how well they treated me and gave advice.
Almost as if their job is to make sure that you pay taxes correctly... It really makes sense that they would want it to be correct as it is less potential work for them.
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The french initiative started in 2013 is still alive (last commit a few days ago), and passes the gov test suite (they keep in touch with our version of the IRS): https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-france The way we got this is interestingly twisted. French citizens requested the software used by the administration, and they managed to get it! But, it was written in Mlang, a proprietary language created by the fr…
France has no State/Provincial level taxes. They also do not tax global income. These add major complexities to the US tax code.
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I am serious. And Red Hat had $3.4 billion in revenue the year it was acquired. There are plenty of people getting paid to write open source software. The top contributors to open source projects are frequently for-profit companies. Open source != hobbyist. There’s nothing about paid software development that requires source code to be kept private.
Their customers aren’t paying for the software.
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>> Generally not the kind of thing for open source Hard to know in advance, if OS communities can do something well or not. There are examples of taking on pretty sprawling problems successfully. On multi Language, portability and such they can often beat the "armies."
Yes, but the problem with taxation is if you are couple of months behind the change in regulation, you are in violation and depending on the country, you need to pay fines. It's easy to have open source project where the stakes are "bad translation" or something that doesn't result in fines or problems with IRS/law.
The question is, do you think the potential penalty will cost more than the tax software? It comes down to managing risk, and some people may prefer to take the risk, especially if they have relatively simple tax situations.
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Open source can be paid.
No it can’t.
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I am 100% opposed to this model. I am even opposed to Automatic Deductions People should have some "skin" in the game of taxation, if we allow the process to become seamless overtaxation becomes a real problem. Even today people do not treat their Gross income as their income, they look at net. This is the wrong way to look at it. I believe people should have to physically pay the government every month just like you…
If their take home goes down because of increased taxation, people will notice.
We have history of this as well in the US, a prime example of this is property taxes. When a state raises the income tax rate there are a few grumbles but hardly anyone actively protests, however if property taxes go up people can be found literately in the street protesting because it causes their mortgage to go up (as most people pay property taxes via escrow with their lender)
This is direct payment of taxes monthly where the person received the money, then has to pay it out, has a vastly different psychological effect than if the money is seized before ever being received by the person
I maintain that the ONLY way the government can get way with the MASSIVE amounts of taxation everyone pays is for 2 primary reasons
1. Distributed collection 2. Automatic Collection
If either was not in place the government would have huge amounts of civil unrest because by an large most people would instantly recognized they are being fleeced by the government no different than a mugger on the street
I 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…
Agreed with edge cases. Last year I tried using free (as in beer) and even cheap softwares, and they couldn't or wouldn't process for Americans abroad or have the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion exemption which meant they were all no-gos for me. Seems like the tax system should be drastically simpler. Most countries don't tax expatriated citizens. Even with exemptions you still owe for social security and Medicare. I…
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France has no State/Provincial level taxes. They also do not tax global income. These add major complexities to the US tax code.
If those represent major complexities maybe there can be open source tax software that serves 80% of people, I.e. people in coastal cities that have one job, and then the remaining 20% have to pay for their software?
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France has no State/Provincial level taxes. They also do not tax global income. These add major complexities to the US tax code.
If those represent major complexities maybe there can be open source tax software that serves 80% of people, I.e. people in coastal cities that have one job, and then the remaining 20% have to pay for their software?
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> You just plug in the data (..) Here in the Netherlands I don't have to plug in any data, everything is pre-filled. Income, bank accounts, mortgage, advances on deductions, etc. All you have to do is verify it (you can change things if necessary, but I've never had to do that). Takes about five minutes max.
If that were to happen in America, an entire industry would be put out of business.