[Novalug] Tax Software Example

Kevin Dwyer kevin@pheared.net
Tue Jan 23 15:48:15 EST 2007


On Tue, Jan 23, 2007 at 03:29:59PM -0500, Keith Casey wrote:
> On 1/23/07, Michael Stone <mstone@mathom.us> wrote:
> >Yes, it's great. Luckily, lobbying by the tax-preperation industry has
> >saved us from having our federal tax dollars wasted on such a free,
> >standards-based facility at the federal level.
> 
> I don't think the solution is to implement standards for this at the
> Federal level.  We've seen what happens there.  We end up with DST
> changing at the whims of Congress.  Can you imagine trying to keep up
> with the changes in that spec?  Microsoft might look like the good
> guys.   Oh, and if you misimplement it, your users could go to jail.

I think you're misunderstanding Mike.  The thread mentioned that there
are nice state-level facilities for entering and submitting your tax
information.  VA and MD both have this.  What would be nice is to have
https://taxes.irs.gov which provides the same facility, but specific to
the federal level (1040, etc).  The IRS knows the IRS rules.  There is
no liability to worry about and no third party to permanently store and
mine your information.

In fact, the IRS already has a spec which companies already have to
support and offer gaurantees to their users that they are submitting
their information correctly.  That's the thing we don't care for.  The
point is that this layer shouldn't even be necessary.

> I think the underlying system needs to be replaced.
> 
> Imagine if we had a simple flat tax.  Greg's son could do the taxes
> for everyone in NoVaLUG... during the next meeting... on a post
> card.... and you could double check the calculation by the time you
> got to the car.

Debating the merits of a flat tax is entirely the subject of a different
thread and perhaps a different mailing list.  Regardless of whether it's
a good idea, it's certainly not something you will ever see Congress
take up, since it reduces their power.

-kpd



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