On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 2:26 PM, Matthew Gillen <m...@mattgillen.net> wrote: > On 1/14/2015 8:05 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: >> Unfortunately there are only a few companies in the industry who >> produce tax software, and they only Windows and Mac compatible, or >> you can use the web interfaces. This type of software does not really >> lend itself to to Open Source. > > Why do you say that? Because it requires a lot of specialized knowledge > that typical CS majors don't have? There are certain projects in the > open source world that have to pay attention to regulatory issues (e.g. > wireless drivers), and they seem to be able to do so. > > I suppose the tax code is orders of magnitude more complex and > intertwined. I'd be curious to explore your statement a little more > though regarding what kinds of things lend themselves to open source.
It isn't just the complexity. It is the constant churn. Sometimes because of last minute changes from Congress, the IRS doesn't put out final instructions/forms until late Fall. Admittedly these are usually fairly esoteric issues, but as lots of people have something odd about their taxes (uninsured medical expenses, loss due to theft/fire, consulting income, etc., etc.); any organization putting out tax software has to be prepared to put out a new version fairly quickly. Plus the software is geographically restricted. US Federal tax software might be adaptable to state level returns; but probably won't be at all useful for UK or Canadian taxes. This just doesn't strike me as a problem domain that is very tractable to volunteer efforts. It is also (to a great extent) an all or nothing problem for most users. If tax software only handles 2 of the 3 forms that I need to fill out, it probably isn't worth my time to use it. I'm not aware of any other free software (or culture i.e. wikipedia) which operates under these conditions. Bill Bogstad _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss