Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
On Wed, 2007-02-28 at 20:51 +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote: Rev Simon Rumble wrote: On 2/28/2007, Howard Lowndes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My own guess is that it's probably more of a distro thing. Should they support Debian, or Fedora, or Ubuntu, or Slackware, or Gentoo, or Mandriva, or some minority distro, and why not my own preference? Should they package to rpm, or apt, or tgz? Eh? What's wrong with HTML? Nothing, but I think some of the app runs on the client and is not all web based. I think just about *all* of the app runs on the client. It's a windows program that only requires Internet explorer for the few times it contacts the ATO. I have downloaded the app the last few years and have managed to get it running almost perfectly under Cedega. (didn't try wine but I would be surprised if things were different). By almost I mean the app runs just fine, it takes your info, saves it perfectly, calculates your expected return just great, and then when asked to submit your info to the tax office... Falls on its head. This is just my experience, but if anyone has had different results, I'd love to hear about it. If the ATO could make their taxation thing web based, (and browser independent), that would be fantastic. But while the program is a client based application (and the linux userbase is still quite small), perhaps the *easiest* platform that they could support would be wine. Darren. P.S. the tax program failed on my windows computer at work in nearly the same way, but I suspect the reason was more of an excessively strict firewall policy than anything else. -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: ATO online
Sorry to jump in to this late in the piece. Is this about downloading the ATO application to complete the Tax Pack online versus having a webpage that one completes? I had read ages ago - just before the current tax year started - that the ATO electronic tax pack application will run under Wine. 'fraid I have no references. It was a while ago. Regards, Patrick -- Registered Linux User 368634 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
Hi all, Just got this through mail. So now might be a good time to add some pressure! -tax 2006 is closed and e-tax 2007 is under development. http://ato.gov.au/distributor.asp?doc=/content/39979.htm Published: 28 Feb 2007 Mark -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: ATO online
And since after JUly 1 self funded retirees etc over 60 will get their pensions tax-free, that probably eliminates a few more % due to many above that age not having net access and/or being computer illiterate. Anyway, seems to me that most of the 90% would be online lodgements by Tax Agents. Bill Since they reckon that they have already got 90% online lodgement and are targeting 95%. perhaps they are tacitly admitting that they are not interested in the remaining 5% that represent Linux desktops. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:55:14 +1100 bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And since after JUly 1 self funded retirees etc over 60 will get their pensions tax-free, that probably eliminates a few more % due to many above that age not having net access and/or being computer illiterate. Watch it mate :-) Anyway, seems to me that most of the 90% would be online lodgements by Tax Agents. Bill Since they reckon that they have already got 90% online lodgement and are targeting 95%. perhaps they are tacitly admitting that they are not interested in the remaining 5% that represent Linux desktops. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan Tel: +61 2 4782 2670Mobile: +61 427 486 206 Fax: +61 2 4782 7092FWD: 615662 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
OK... so why CAN'T the ATO get their act together and be platform independent? is there a real reason or just the usual stuff-you attitude that some parts of the tax office adopt? What is the technical reason? does anyone know? On Wed, 2007-02-28 at 11:21 +1100, Alan L Tyree wrote: On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:55:14 +1100 bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And since after JUly 1 self funded retirees etc over 60 will get their pensions tax-free, that probably eliminates a few more % due to many above that age not having net access and/or being computer illiterate. Watch it mate :-) Anyway, seems to me that most of the 90% would be online lodgements by Tax Agents. Bill Since they reckon that they have already got 90% online lodgement and are targeting 95%. perhaps they are tacitly admitting that they are not interested in the remaining 5% that represent Linux desktops. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan Tel: +61 2 4782 2670Mobile: +61 427 486 206 Fax: +61 2 4782 7092FWD: 615662 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
On 2/28/2007, Howard Lowndes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My own guess is that it's probably more of a distro thing. Should they support Debian, or Fedora, or Ubuntu, or Slackware, or Gentoo, or Mandriva, or some minority distro, and why not my own preference? Should they package to rpm, or apt, or tgz? Eh? What's wrong with HTML? -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
On Wednesday 28 February 2007 13:08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK... so why CAN'T the ATO get their act together and be platform independent? is there a real reason or just the usual stuff-you attitude that some parts of the tax office adopt? What is the technical reason? does anyone know? On Wed, 2007-02-28 at 11:21 +1100, Alan L Tyree wrote: On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:55:14 +1100 bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And since after JUly 1 self funded retirees etc over 60 will get their pensions tax-free, that probably eliminates a few more % due to many above that age not having net access and/or being computer illiterate. Watch it mate :-) Anyway, seems to me that most of the 90% would be online lodgements by Tax Agents. One needs only to look at what a nice job the census folk did (every browser I tried worked perfectly) to be able to declare that: a) FYJ (very rude, I'll not translate) b) Gross incompetent IT staff implementing online tax James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: ATO online
This one time, at band camp, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One needs only to look at what a nice job the census folk did (every browser I tried worked perfectly) to be able to declare that: To be fair, collecting a census is quite a bit simpler than collecting a tax return. The sheer size of the Taxpack compared to the size of the census form should make that obvious. What you've got is a web developer who doesn't know how to develop platform independently quoting n times the development time where n is the number of browser/platform combinations to be supported. As opposed to developing in a platform-independent way and testing with a smaller number of platforms (with the inevitable tweaks required to make it work in IE). Most web developers still think this way. They shouldn't be allowed to call themselves web developers but IE developers. -- Rev Simon Rumble [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.rumble.net Call me a cynic, but for me much more stable than the last version of Windows is not exactly a ringing endorsement. - James Riden -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
