10 ms·

OpenFisca – Open models to compute tax and benefit systems

125 points by based2 10y ago

anonymousDan 10y ago
Has anybody actually used this? It looks pretty interesting, but how would you get it up and running for a particular country without entering everything from scratch? Is there a way of bootstrapping the simulation for particular countries or regions?
- maelito 10y ago
  It's used today in France for notably : - estimating the taxes on salaries eg. before hiring (1) - estimating one's (as a citizen) social benefits on a centralized web page (2) - for various economic studies (where the numpy implementation helps working on large inputs) The core (https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core) package defines abstract structures used primarily but not specific to the France-specific package (-france), where the law is coded. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to bootstrap a new country (eg. generating templates for different kinds of taxes). -tunisia is the second country implemented, but much less maintained. "Extensions" enable local specifics to be added (e.g. specific to Paris). "Reforms" enable the simulation of experiments (e.g. simulating a basic income). (1) http://sgmap.github.io/cout-embauche/ http://sgmap.github.io/cout-embauche/ (2) https://mes-aides.gouv.fr/ https://mes-aides.gouv.fr/
- cbenz 10y ago
  There is no "starter kit" to bootstrap a new country, but the project architecture is designed to clearly separate the core engine from the modeled country. As this question has occured many times, we're certainly going to work on this topic and add a chapter to the documentation "Howto bootstrap a new country". For now starting a new country consists of creating a new repository like openfisca-<country_name>, implement what we call entities (ways to group people together like households, families, etc.) and implement the formulas corresponding to the legislation taxes and/or benefits you want to compute. This involves a lot of reverse-engineering work! If someone is interested, please contact us by opening a thread on the forum (https://forum.openfisca.fr/ https://forum.openfisca.fr/) or a GitHub issue (https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core/issues https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core/issues)
Svenstaro 10y ago
Looks really cool but it would help if there were a more thorough English translation and if the examples were in English as well.
- maelito 10y ago
  The documentation has quite a lot of english sections. http://doc.openfisca.fr/en/index.html http://doc.openfisca.fr/en/index.html
kensai 10y ago
Very interesting. This thing should be translated/applied to every country. Are there any ongoing plans/implementations? Say for Germany. Is there a list somewhere?
- cbenz 10y ago
  Hi, One of the developers here :) One of the original authors has both nationalities French and Tunisian and he started to implement Tunisia, but it's a "work in progress", without UI yet. Source code: https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-tunisia https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-tunisia The team is happy to welcome newcomers for new countries.
- matthjensen 10y ago
  Tax-Calculator (1) and TaxBrain (2) are part of a similar project for the USA. There are several other policy-relevant projects in the open-source-economics GH organization (3). Feel free to email me for more information. (1) http://www.github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator http://www.github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator (2) http://www.ospc.org/taxbrain http://www.ospc.org/taxbrain (3) http://www.github.com/open-source-economics http://www.github.com/open-source-economics
lasermike026 10y ago
What an excellent idea. All functions and interactions with Bureaucracies should be automated.
cmfg 10y ago
Thanks for the support: it's heartwarming! To follow OpenFisca progress: @OpenFisca on Twitter + https://forum.openfisca.fr/ https://forum.openfisca.fr/ Coming next: the integration of the recently released French tax software source code into OpenFisca > https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-unveils-source-code-income-tax-application https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-unvei...
- Iv 10y ago
  That link seems broken: https://www.openfisca.fr/en/tools/variables-graph https://www.openfisca.fr/en/tools/variables-graph Too bad, it looked interesting!
dekker 10y ago
when will there be a translation into english or german? i would LOVE to have this. pleeeeeease

125 points by based2 10y ago

Has anybody actually used this? It looks pretty interesting, but how would you get it up and running for a particular country without entering everything from scratch? Is there a way of bootstrapping the simulation for particular countries or regions?

maelito 10y ago
It's used today in France for notably : - estimating the taxes on salaries eg. before hiring (1) - estimating one's (as a citizen) social benefits on a centralized web page (2) - for various economic studies (where the numpy implementation helps working on large inputs) The core (https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core) package defines abstract structures used primarily but not specific to the France-specific package (-france), where the law is coded. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to bootstrap a new country (eg. generating templates for different kinds of taxes). -tunisia is the second country implemented, but much less maintained. "Extensions" enable local specifics to be added (e.g. specific to Paris). "Reforms" enable the simulation of experiments (e.g. simulating a basic income). (1) http://sgmap.github.io/cout-embauche/ http://sgmap.github.io/cout-embauche/ (2) https://mes-aides.gouv.fr/ https://mes-aides.gouv.fr/
cbenz 10y ago
There is no "starter kit" to bootstrap a new country, but the project architecture is designed to clearly separate the core engine from the modeled country. As this question has occured many times, we're certainly going to work on this topic and add a chapter to the documentation "Howto bootstrap a new country". For now starting a new country consists of creating a new repository like openfisca-<country_name>, implement what we call entities (ways to group people together like households, families, etc.) and implement the formulas corresponding to the legislation taxes and/or benefits you want to compute. This involves a lot of reverse-engineering work! If someone is interested, please contact us by opening a thread on the forum (https://forum.openfisca.fr/ https://forum.openfisca.fr/) or a GitHub issue (https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core/issues https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core/issues)

Svenstaro 10y ago

Looks really cool but it would help if there were a more thorough English translation and if the examples were in English as well.

maelito 10y ago
The documentation has quite a lot of english sections. http://doc.openfisca.fr/en/index.html http://doc.openfisca.fr/en/index.html

kensai 10y ago

Very interesting. This thing should be translated/applied to every country. Are there any ongoing plans/implementations? Say for Germany. Is there a list somewhere?

cbenz 10y ago
Hi, One of the developers here :) One of the original authors has both nationalities French and Tunisian and he started to implement Tunisia, but it's a "work in progress", without UI yet. Source code: https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-tunisia https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-tunisia The team is happy to welcome newcomers for new countries.
matthjensen 10y ago
Tax-Calculator (1) and TaxBrain (2) are part of a similar project for the USA. There are several other policy-relevant projects in the open-source-economics GH organization (3). Feel free to email me for more information. (1) http://www.github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator http://www.github.com/open-source-economics/tax-calculator (2) http://www.ospc.org/taxbrain http://www.ospc.org/taxbrain (3) http://www.github.com/open-source-economics http://www.github.com/open-source-economics

lasermike026 10y ago

What an excellent idea. All functions and interactions with Bureaucracies should be automated.

cmfg 10y ago

Thanks for the support: it's heartwarming! To follow OpenFisca progress: @OpenFisca on Twitter + https://forum.openfisca.fr/ https://forum.openfisca.fr/ Coming next: the integration of the recently released French tax software source code into OpenFisca > https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-unveils-source-code-income-tax-application https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-unvei...

Iv 10y ago
That link seems broken: https://www.openfisca.fr/en/tools/variables-graph https://www.openfisca.fr/en/tools/variables-graph Too bad, it looked interesting!

dekker 10y ago

when will there be a translation into english or german? i would LOVE to have this. pleeeeeease