Navigation

Release Notes

0. For whom is this software intended?
1. Why are you doing this?  There are lots of online tax programs I can use.  Or I can boot up Windows and use TaxAct.
2. Why don't you have a friendlier user interface?
3.  What are your short-range goals with this program?
4. What are your long-range (pie-in-the-sky) goals on this program?
5. Will this software ever be out of alpha?
6. Why can't I e-file with this program?
7. I need form "X".  When can I expect this form to be supported?
8. Will next year's version be able to read this year's data?
9. I'm having a problem with my PDFs.  The fonts are screwed up, and as such, nothing lines up correctly.
10. What qualifies you to write a tax program?
11. Why don't you just use XUL instead?  It's way cooler than HTML based applications.
12. Why didn't you use GTK+, QT, or some real widget set with C, C++, or some real programming language?
13. I found a bug.  What do I do?

At this point, geeks mainly. How do you know if you're a geek? You probably code in at least one programming or scripting language, you like figuring out how things work, and you actually read the manual on occasion (a habit borne of trying to find API documentation). If you are not a geek, you will probably have some issues using this program at this early stage. If you are a geek, you will probably have some issues with my coding. :-). Anyhow, the point is that the code is not ready for unrestricted public consumption. Consider yourself warned!

Because I'm a masochist. :-)  Actually, I'm doing it because I install Linux for friends and family to fix the adware and virus problems they have.  In general, they love it.  However,  the chief complaint among them is that they can't do taxes on Linux.  For some of them, this is really frustrating, even though they like everything else.

Also, considering the recent scandals with unnamed companies releasing personal information and data by intent or accident, I am feeling rather less confident about web-based tax solutions of late.  Call me paranoid, but my intent is prudence.

Believe me, that's on the to-do list.  I'd love to have an interview format like some of the more popular tax software out there.  But a rewrite of the calculation "engine" needs to be completed first.

The first is rather boring actually.  It is a rewrite of the calculation "engine" so that all calculations are done independently of the forms.  In order to support some more interesting features, the calculation functions need to be isolated from the forms.  Currently calculation functions directly access the forms for their data - so a given form needs to be open for a related calculation to be done.  The plan is to change this so that a calculations library is created.  This library will be able to either have form data passed to it, or read directly from saved files, whichever is appropriate.

Next, input validation needs to be added.  Currently, there is almost none.  If a user enters letters into a number field, there will be problems.

The next goal is to add an interview front end to make the program less geeky and more user friendly.  This will probably be implemented sometime late this year or early next year as I have time.

A long range goal is to enable e-filing.  The XPCom interface of Mozilla based browsers is very capable of doing everything necessary to e-file.  The issues are that the IRS hasn't proved to be very responsive to my inquiries about this and the e-file API is a HUGE document that I haven't had time to properly appreciate.

Finally, as time permits, I will be adding forms.  The most important one at this point is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Worksheet.   The AMT is a tax that was intended to affect rich people who had mainly capital gains and interest, but not wages.  However, in rare cases, it can affect the rest of us.  The problem is that you can't be certain that it doesn't affect you unless you fill out this form.  In the current release (0.10), this worksheet is included as a PDF.

If people actually like this program and find it easy to add forms, then my primary long-range goal would be to create a user community to maintain an archive of up-to-date forms for use with this code.   This will, of course require changes to Form 1040 so that it can properly accept results from these forms.  It would also be nice to be able to read the Federal results into state forms.  I'm planning to get Pennsylvania started this year as an example.

Honestly, this is not likely.  Why?  Because the IRS changes the tax forms every year.  So every year a new release is required.  While next year's release will be easier to put together, it will still require changes to just about every form.  I'll be able to reuse much of the current structure of the program, but much of the logic will necessarily change.  This is the primary reason why no-body has done an Open Source tax program to this date. That said, the program will keep improving.

Because of the lack of cooperation of the IRS and the API.  When I wrote to the IRS regarding this, I received the following reply. (Update 3/11/2007: a number of people have written me doubting the veracity of this. Let me post the full correspondence to satisfy my critics.)

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thank you for your inquiry.

The government believes that private industry, given its established expertise and experience in the field of electronic tax preparation, has a proven track record in providing the best technology and services available. In addition, the government believes a partnership with private industry will: provide taxpayers with higher quality services by using the existing expertise of the private sector; maximize consumer choice; promote competition within the marketplace; and meet objectives in the least costly manner to taxpayers.

We hope the above information will prove helpful to you.
 
Sincerely,
The IRS Website Support Team

--Original Message--
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: 2/2/2005 6:49:41 PM
To: helpdesk@speedymail.com
Subject: Individual E-file without 3rd Party

To whom it may concern:

I noticed that the IRS does not provide an option to e-file independent 
of private for-profit companies.  Why is this?  Your stated goal is to 
have 80% of tax-payers file electronically within the next couple of 
years.  Yet, by requiring the usage of for-profit companies, it seems 
that a 37 cent stamp or two is much cheaper for most people.  Most 
European Union countries provide free government approved software to 
the public for e-filing.

I am a programmer and would not be adverse to filing my taxes 
electronically myself if the formats were openly available and it was 
possible to digitally sign the form myself.  Is this a possibility?  Can 
you point me towards the specifications or are they not publically 
available?

Thanks!
Dr. Tim Niiler

To follow up, the IRS has now clearly marked what is necessary in Publication 3112. Essentially, one must create an organization with a certain chain of accountability approved by the IRS. There is no requirement to indemnify users if mistakes are made. Rather, one must submit to certain testing (PATS and possibly others), fix mistakes as they are discovered, and follow certain standards of practice. Finally, one must have a dedicated server which is authorized to communicate with the IRS servers and which meets a certain standard of security. In short, e-Filing is a major undertaking that probably will require the resources of a corporation, partnership, etc. - more than a two developer team can handle at this point.

Either when I get round to it, or you do.  There is a developer's kit attached to this package that will let someone with a bit of Javascript, HTML, and Perl experience put together a new form quickly.  If the form is not hugely interdependent on other forms, it is reasonable to expect a qualified individual to have it up and running in a couple of hours.

That's the long-range plan.  At this point, it will need to wait until the calculations "engine" is redone. Stay tuned.

Er...I don't do fonts.  I would make sure you have the latest Ghostscript fonts installed and go from there.  This program should be writing everything in Arial/Helvetica by default as the vast majority of folks have those fonts installed.  See the screenshots for samples of what you should expect to see.

Good question.  I'm a physics prof, a business owner, and part-time coder, not an accountant.  But I've been doing my own taxes by hand for years (up till about 1997).  Also, I myself have an extremely complex set of taxes, so I'm familiar with most of the concepts involved come tax time.  Other than that, I have no qualifications.  You use this software at your own risk!

It *is* way cooler.  It's also more time intensive and requires a much more complicated structure, and at the current time, I doubt there are as many good XUL programmers as there are JavaScript/HTML coders.  Thus I think XUL would limit the ability of this project to grow quickly.

That said, if you like XUL and want to code this baby up, be my guest.  XUL would eliminate some of the permissions hassels new users will get when they try writing/reading/executing local files for the first time.

Oh dear....I knew this was coming.  My primary reason is that I'm a much faster coder with Javascript/HTML than I am with C/GTK+.    Also, this is a tax application, not an OpenGL based graphics engine.  It doesn't need to be optimized for speed.  Finally, due to the rapid changing of tax forms, I think that coding in C/GTK+ is too slow, if done properly (IMHO). 

Again, should you wish to port to a real programming language, be my guest.  I'll be the first to try out the new version.

Report it at http://taxgeek.sourceforge.net.  I'll try to get to it in a timely manner, but I make no guarantees that this will happen when you want it to. 

Better yet, code a fix and send it in.