On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 1:09 AM, donkyhotay <[email protected]> wrote: > Except turbo tax is trying to move away from linux compatibility. There > is another thread on this list where people are complaining about the > flash requirement of turbo tax. Flash doesn't bother me so much (though > I'd prefer to be without it) but I've used turbo tax online since I > first migrated to linux about 3 years ago (and used the install version > before that). This year though I had to use the 'user agent switcher' to > spoof turbo tax into thinking I was running IE on windows in order for > it to let me in.
That's odd. I had to do that last year (when filing for 2007) but I did *not* have to do anything like that this year (using a different computer -- and ubuntu vs. debian). I also did my taxes in late Jan. though, so maybe they changed it (hey, that might not be a *horrible* way to cut down on customer service requests. If you're savvy enough to install a user-agent switcher, then you probably won't have issues printing...) Regarding flash: I decided that I have no grounds to denigrate flash apps until I can trivially write a javascript UI that works equally well on all platforms. --Rogan > The fact that everything worked perfectly without any > problems using firefox on ubuntu really bothers me though. I'll accept > the fact that many companies aren't interested in the linux market and > don't bother making stuff for linux, but when you have something that > *is* compatible with linux and you go out of your way to try to make it > incompatible (and fail at that even), well... it becomes time for me to > look for another tax service (online or not) which I did this year. I > would have felt a little better if I had gotten an error or something > while using turbo tax online (would have meant there was a real reason > to not use linux with their service) but I successfully used everything > up to the point where my taxes were ready to be filed and they wanted me > to pay for the service, I then decided to cancel and go elsewhere at > that point. Making a FOSS tax program wouldn't be too hard, especially > since the USA is big enough and it would benefit so many people there > are bound to be enough volunteers. The problem (as mentioned previously) > is that in addition to federal taxes you have 50 states with their own > tax laws along with the unknown number of counties/cities/whatever as > well. All of these will change from time to time and need constant > updating. While the USA as a whole is probably big enough to draw enough > volunteers to keep federal up to date anything below that will probably > not be kept current or accurate. The only way I see something like this > working is if the FOSS community built a framework program (as mentioned > in previous Emails) that connected to a government maintained publicly > available database which stores information on all taxes at all levels > of government. This way whenever taxes change due to laws being passed > the database is just updated and the program can calculate your taxes > correctly. This way the developers can focus on making certain the > program remained compatible with the database and interface issues (how > questions are asked to the user, etc.). Sadly I don't see our government > being willing to maintaining a database like this even though it would > help avoid confusion with understanding/calculating taxes even if you > didn't use our hypothetical FOSS tax program. > > > > Russell Johnson wrote: >> On Apr 15, 2009, at 10:20 PM, Tim Wescott wrote: >> >>> 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). >>> >> >> For several years now, I've filed my taxes with TurboTax online. On >> Windows, Linux, and OS X. It worked a treat. >> >> >> Russell Johnson >> [email protected] >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> PLUG mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug >> > > -- > Do not be afraid to joust a giant just because some people insist on > believing in windmills. > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
