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On Monday 29 November 2004 08:47 am, BandiPat wrote:
You also make some good points, but again excuses only, as many of the things you point out are not hidden items that only accountants/lawyers are privy too. Anyone wanting or needing the laws, restrictions, or necessary information has access to it by law. You guys seem to want to make something relatively simple into something more complex. That's not to say it can't get complex, but it's certainly not rocket science! Consider that probably 50% of the people doing taxes only need basic tax knowledge, since their taxes don't require corporation type calculations. I think most of you guys are looking at the "big" picture while forgetting why these type programs exist in the first place. Who would you consider to be the prime purchaser of these programs? Certainly not accountants or tax lawyers, but the average joe home user. That's not to say they shouldn't get every deduction they can too, but what they need is easily accessible. As an "experienced" programmer, you more than most should know it doesn't take programming experience to accomplish the things needed to do this type of setup.
If it were so simple to set up a good tax program, our problem would be one of which one to use instead of where to find even one. I used to do my taxes by hand. When I decided to try a commercial program I found I saved a lot of time. Not time doing calculations, that's just simple, basic math. I could do the math with a calculator faster than I could set up a spreadsheet. I saved time reading all the instructions and making sure I understood it all. The commercial software guarantees the laws are followed and will stand behind their software. The time saved even that first year (with fairly simple taxes) was worth more than the software cost.
Also, you seem to be under the misconception that accountants & tax lawyers use these off the shelf programs. They don't, nor would you want them to, if they were doing your taxes. But then average joe user doesn't have the need or money to normally pay the price for a full time accounting company or tax lawyer, do they? --------------------
Well, I don't know what they use to do our corporate taxes, but I do know two of our very computer literate (in spreadsheets and databases like approach and access) CPAs use commercial software to do individual taxes. One uses TaxCut and the other TurboTax. They have 'discussions' about which is best.
Anyone that chooses to create their own setup in a spreadsheet or database doesn't do it for the forms, but to get their taxes done electronically without all the pencil & paper work. I think the only reason noone has done a program yet is because nobody has taken the time or had the interest to do it.
Again the simple math can be done faster with a calculator than the time it takes to set up a spreadsheet (and the spreadsheet would have to be modified each year as laws and situations change). The reason no one has done it is because for simple cases it isn't worth the time, for complex cases, well, its complex... not to mention the potential liability if the programmer gets it wrong.
Nope. It requires expert knowledge of the tax laws more than it does knowledge of spreadsheet, database or GUI programming.
************** Again, I have to disagree with you because it doesn't. Knowledge yes, but expert knowledge, no. Any person with working knowledge of such programs and the desire to create could do them. Plus, if more extensive knowledge of the tax laws are needed, they have access to those or can take one of the many classes offered by the very people many pay to do their taxes!
Supply and demand along with competition still works. A lot of people want and are willing to pay for commercial software. If it were easy to produce, we would be flooded with it. For personal use, time is money. The time I would spend researching and taking classes would cost far more than I spend on software. Now back to really important suff. Which desktop did I have kmines running on? Doug