FSF Calls On the IRS To Provide Libre Tax-Filing Software - Slashdot
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FSF Calls On the IRS To Provide Libre Tax-Filing Software
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$15 million of the $80 billion that was approved for the IRS by the Inflation Reduction Act includes the promise to further explore an "electronic service to prepare and file tax returns directly with the IRS." To do so, the IRS intends to "study taxpayer preferences for products. The results of the study will inform if and how the IRS should design such a service." The FSF writes: Let's call on the IRS to make a website for filing your tax return which respects your freedom. This is your chance. Write to the new IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel with your message. [...] Look up the address of your state's tax filing institution and send your letter to this address. Post your letter on social media to inspire others to do the same.
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Not sure of the current status, but I remember in 2007 that Alexandre Oliva reverse engineered the software for filing taxes in Brazil:
https://www.linux.com/news/fsf... [linux.com]
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In years when I file a simple 1040 and fuck it up somehow by forgetting some interest or some data entry error or whatever, they come back to me later and either send me a bill or give me the money back on an over payment.
If they already know what the fucking numbers should be why do I have to file?
Why not let everyone just accept whatever default they already know it should be and only require filing for those who have a more complex situation?
Instead no I have to pay turbo tax 200 bucks a year or in compl
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Most people in most developed countries do not have to file.
They get a tax proposal from the government and only if they spot errors do they file the change for that error.
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Exactly. That's what I'm talking about. Our tax system is ridiculous.
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If you're filing a simple 1040EZ, TurboTax and others have free filing options. They don't advertise them and try to direct you to more expensive products, but they are there and required by law. They even got sued over it, and you might be (or have been) eligible for a refund for prior years.
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Unfortunately I'm filing 1040.
And they charge for electronic filing and for extra states and blah blah blah.
Taxes shouldn't be so complicated I need to pay someone to help perform a government mandated function.
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If you can fill out a 1040+schedules, you can file for free with the IRS Free Fillable Forms website (no income limit). And my state has free online filing (kind of a wizard-based thing, still basically following the forms) for everybody. I've never paid for the scam that is tax software, been filing electronically for many years.
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If the IRS eventually offers such a service, it will be online and not local. Having it online allows them to fix software issues as they go, whereas problems in local software are going to be much more difficult to reliably fix and lead to arguments over who is responsible for discrepancies if the local software goes unpatched.
It's also highly unlikely to meet the FSF's requirements, which usually prohibits minification. We're likely to see jQuery and other libraries to save on developing at least some of the JS libraries, and we won't get any code running on the backend. They may set up a bug bounty program, but not on the live servers.
By all means, send in the messages. Petition the government for a desired outcome. Just don't be surprised when it doesn't come anywhere close.
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If the IRS eventually offers such a service, it will be online and not local. Having it online allows them to fix software issues as they go,
This is all nonsense, they just need to make their repository public.
Having an online service is orthogonal to "open and free." And if they make it free for distribution, the code quality will be better.-
Code quality? This is tax software we're talking about. The complexity is in the business rules, which absolutely won't be editable by just anyone. This is one of those situations where liability comes heavily into play.
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It's not asking them to meet the FSF requirements. It's not even asking them to release it under the FSF umbrella. It's just asking them to put the source under a open source licence.
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Make it The U.S.A. inc. They can make their own money. O wait, they already do!
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He gets too much credit for how little work he's actually done. And, before anyone says anything, he didn't create emacs. He merely ported it.
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He developed a definition for free software, the concept of copyleft, a set of licences to implement copyleft, he travelled the world for decades building support for this, he wrote code for GCC and GNU Emacs and a lot of other software projects that enabled others to make the packages we use today, he inspired campaigns against software patents, against DRM, against bad copyright laws.
And he persevered despite decades of insults and other people trying to ensure no one heard of his work.
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And failed in the long term as superior licenses emerged. Face it, GPL is a legacy license, an early flawed attempt the development world has largely move beyond. By far new projects are selecting other licenses, more permissive licenses.
"Permissive Open Source Licenses Continue to Trend
It’s no surprise that permissive open source licenses continue to dominate. The Apache 2.0 license and the MIT License are far more popular than the GPL family, together comprising over 50% of the top open source l-
Linus Torvalds has gone on record saying GPLv2 is the best licence for open source projects that matter. GPLv2 code, like Linux or Git, has not put off commercial use or contribution.
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Great that FSF is officially joining the fight for unfucking tax filing in the US.
Also, this fight is very very far from new.
Everyone here already hates it, and has for their entire employed lifetime.
Every other modern country points and laughs at our shit tax filing process.
Despite coming up for "public debate" every single year for at least the last decade, it remains unchanged.
The "S.4508 - Tax Filing Simplification Act of 2022" actually did the INVERSE and made it simpler for my employer while making it -
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Flat tax is kind of regressive, and consumption tax even more regressive. Europe gets away with it because they compensate with a lot of social services. A consumption tax in the USA without free health care for all and more unionization would widen the already dangerous wealth gap.
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"Flat" is often a bit of a misnomer. Most flat tax proposals are tiered and have different tax rates at each income tier. It's really only flat within the tier. No deductions, no credits. Whatever the % your tier pays is what you pay. Your tax return could fit on a post card. Income -> Tax tier table -> % -> Taxes Due -> Amount Already Paid -> Amount Due/Refunded.
Hell your last paycheck of the year could contain the postcard prefilled with the numbers and just needing your signature.-
Then that's a progressive tax system.
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>"provide free/libre tax-filing software for Americans to file their taxes"
I don't even want "software". I just want to be able to freaking fill out a few web forms versions of 1040/etc on a secure website THEY manage and submit and be done. I don't want to load anything. I don't want to "share" my data with a third party.
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Did you even bother reading past the first few sentences of the summary?
Because he makes ENTIRELY this point. If you have online-only forms, then you may as well concede that at some time in the future, your data WILL be shared by a third party. That's why the letter is arguing for open source software that's not just a "service", so you are also in control of whether your data is shared with a third party, now and into the future.
You do NOT get this guarantee from web forms. THAT'S THE POINT. No one
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Why are we talking about tax software at all? Let's do it the way all the civilized countries do:
Just send us a tax form already filled out perfectly, which 95% of us will just double check for obvious mistakes and return with our payment (if applicable).
If you're one of the small percentage of people that have additional tax considerations the government doesn't already know about, then you make the corrections and send that in. Or probably hire a crooked accountant to do it properly because, let's be ho
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They need to make certain they don't hire the same software development firm that built the Obamacare enrollment website!
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I'd have to check my records but I can recall first filing my tax online using the Australian Tax Office's free eTax software at least 20 years ago. Around 2006 I had switched to Linux and ran eTax in a VirtualBox (or was it VMware at that stage?) spun up just to file my tax. They never did release eTax for Linux but it's all browser based nowadays.
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