On Wed, April 15, 2009 9:10 pm, Michael Robinson wrote: > Tax software that is good needs to ask intelligent questions and using > the answers to them fill out the appropriate forms. To achieve that, > you need a programmer obviously to write the software and a certified > public accountant specializing in tax to come up with both the > questions, the calculations, and the proper forms. > > What would be involved if hypothetically someone on this list started > a successful tax software company that focused on Linux as the platform? > What language would be most appropriate to write the tax software in? > What tool sets are most likely to be the same across all versions of > Linux that are out there in the wild? I wonder what people who have > a background in tax and/or writing financial software think. -- snip --
Thoughts: You're going to spend a lot more time and money on domain experts than you will on a programming language, particularly when you get to addressing all the state taxes and potentially the regional (i.e. TriMet). Instead of "for Linux", perhaps you should think of "for Linux and Windows", or "for anything". I was thinking of this the other day, and it occurred to me that you could even make it open source and still make money -- just license the framework under GPL, but charge for the databases that embody all the tax laws. Java would be a good candidate for meeting the above criteria, although there are a lot of really good cross-platform tools in a lot of really good programming languages. -- Tim Wescott Control systems and communications consulting http://www.wescottdesign.com Land line: 503.631.7815 Cell: 503.349.8432 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
