On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Michael Robinson <[email protected]> wrote: > I think you guys are missing the whole point of the challenge. The > challenge is to replace TurboTax with a Linux based tax preparation > program. Talking about whether or not TurboTax online works and > how to do your taxes with a stone chisel or chickens misses the > point. I would like to see some discussion on how to get a project > going to write a tax preparation program for Linux. Yeah there should > be a Windows version too, so maybe Java and/or LISP should be used. > I'm curious why people talk about whether or not TurboTax online works > and not about what it would take to replace it with a Linux compatible > program? > > How do you get a project started on sourceforge? > > Who wants to join me? > > What will a sourceforge project cost? > > I don't know about anyone else on here, but I don't want to be forced > to run Vista or Windows 7 to do my taxes. First off, I don't have > anything better than a P4 with 512 megs of ram. Second off, I'd > rather not do my taxes by hand as e-filing is much nicer. > Every few years someone tries to start up an open-source tax preparation project. It may sputter along for a month or two, but in the end it always dies.
There are a number of reasons for this. One possibility is that tax software just isn't sexy enough. There are many other projects that are much more fun to work on. Or the challenge of maintenance is just too high. Not only do the programmers have to understand the entirety of the tax statutes to write the initial package, but they have to update it, every single year, or it quickly becomes useless. And to be a complete and useful package, it would also have to be able to handle the state taxes too, for every state that has an income tax. And, yes, those packages would have to be updated yearly as well. But I think the main reason that the idea never flies is that the open source community is so global. A typical open-source project has members working on 2 or 3 continents. And income tax is by its very nature very localized. And quite frankly, the vast majority of the open-source community doesn't give a hoot about US income tax. Ali _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
