-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2005-12-26 at 12:43 -0500, ken wrote:
I'd love to see it OSS, at least to the extent of running on Linux... but, I'm not in "America" [for the purpose of this question, North America doesn't count], so it would be of little or no benefit to me.
And me in Spain.
Understood. Whether or not it would benefit folks outside the US would depend upon how the app was coded. I would think that a reasonably smart way to do write such an app would be to have a base executable that would read a file containing business rules and from that create the online version of the paper forms, i.e., something onscreen that the user would enter info into and would handle calculations and pulling up additional forms when needed.
Forms vary a lot from country to country. One way to do it would be to develop a "form" program, that would allow to define forms, including constraints, rules, calculated rules, and context help. Then the output would have to be customizable in many ways, as required by each organization or country. I'll explain how things are here, in Spain, so you get a better picture of what is needed. For example, here the printed forms have to include a "dot code", similar to a "bar code" but with dots instead, that is scanned with a laser; they are usually printed in the second page of the set of forms, and they includes all the info from the whole set set of forms. For some taxes here, we can fill them using Acrobat Reader, then print or send them. I think an internet connection is needed, but I haven't tried if the system works in Linux; it might. You see, I'm reluctant to fill a tax form and paying a tax I don't need to, just to learn if it works in Linux ;-) For the, lets say "main taxes", our government gives for free a special purpose windows program that does all that is needed. It includes help, not only on filling them, but on tax related questions like what is gross income or whatever. There is no Linux version, but there is a java thing instead for "other OS". The snag is that it needs a permanent network connection to a government server, in internet. Other smaller taxes have other versions of their own programs. I heard they were thinking of Linux, I don't know how things will be this year. It seems the government pays a certain company to develop each year tax program, or rather, each year version of the same. It runs in windows, as I said, and uses "access" databases inside. It doesn't run in wine, perhaps some time it will. At least, the program is free, as in gratis, but not like in "freedom". As the program is sponsored by the government, we feel somewhat "protected" from software flaws creating incorrect tax declarations. On the other hand, there is at least one (or two?) private companies that design their own tax program, and they do it in Linux. Although the program is not free, there is some market for it. It would be very difficult to get it free, in both senses: you have got to pay the lawyers and accountants, not only the programmers.
Tax software need only provide an "electronic" means for filling in forms. It isn't necessary for it to provide legal counsel and accounting assistance. It might be nice if it did provide this kind of assistance, but it isn't required for the existence of tax software.
It is in Spain... Thanks to that, I have been able to fill my and my relatives forms without hiring external help, for some years. The chore is complicated by the jargon they use, even a down to earth version of their jargon as it is... That program is in fact responsible of my maintaining a windows system partition here. Well, that programs and the few games I have ;-)
If somebody could suggest open-source solutions to those little problems, THAT would certainly be the greatest thing since sliced bread. In my country, I can count all the OSS tax lawyers and tax accountants on the fingers of one hand... and have five fingers left over.
What do you mean by "OSS tax lawyers"?
That they are prepared to work for free, I understand. I don't see them coming into this culture, do you? :-p Who knows... - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDsEPktTMYHG2NR9URAvlrAJ4nuwLijrQLT3ywAxqThlfXEdZg8QCgjDxq JrUQQXquDkQMCFuiM2DzYgM= =dy2a -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----