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In my country, with an admittedly quite simple tax code, the authorities used to publish each year official COBOL code that computed income tax. They switched
by semi-extrinsic 6y ago
In my country, with an admittedly quite simple tax code, the authorities used to publish each year official COBOL code that computed income tax.
They switched to Java in 2018-ish - and to Github instead of a random FTP server.
Doing your taxes has also been a no-op for many people the past decade or so. You don't do anything except read the tax report, unless you spot some mistakes or items missing in the report that was autofilled by the government, then you can go into the web form and submit the amendments necessary.
- ukd1 6y agoCool - which country? Could you link to the Github repo?
- pratik661 6y agoI’m guessing it’s Estonia. It’s really ahead with digital governance.
- skeletal88 6y agoEstonian here - no it is not Estonia. Here our income tax declaration is very simple, the tax office already knows how much salary we have earned, and there aren't many deductions, so most people either don't have to file taxes at all, or just click next a few times and get their tax returns after a week or so. For 90% of people it takes less than 5 minutes.
- 1f60c 6y agoI think it's Norway. (I just googled GP's email address (it's in their profile).)
- semi-extrinsic 6y agoYeah, it's Norway. https://github.com/Skatteetaten/trekktabell https://github.com/Skatteetaten/trekktabell
- danuker 6y agoHow can you tell? All "Languages" I get is "Java 100.0%".
- semi-extrinsic 6y agoThe COBOL part is from memory. I'll have a look to see if I can find a copy floating around somewhere. Edit: the transition appears to be more like 2016, and one of the commits then refers to a file generated from COBOL: https://github.com/Skatteetaten/trekktabell/commit/5181d86c56194a8952a29416124986a01cd10da6 https://github.com/Skatteetaten/trekktabell/commit/5181d86c5...
- e12e 6y agoI did find an awkward source that lists the 2017(?) COBOL code for the tables - the core program seems to be last updated 1993 (Norwegian only) : https://docplayer.me/38761458-Beregning-av-forskuddstrekk-inntektsaret-desember-skatteetatens-it-og-servicepartner.html https://docplayer.me/38761458-Beregning-av-forskuddstrekk-in... > IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. FT7P200T. AUTHOR. PER J. RISTUN. DATE-WRITTEN. NOVEMBER 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------- * BESKRIVELSE : PROGRAMMET BEREGNER FORSKUDDSTREKK FOR ÅR 2017 * (...)
- semi-extrinsic 6y agoThis is the one! If memory serves, they updated the program for each year (I guess only numerical constants and small rule changes), but they probably didn't update the source in the documentation.
- sdfin 6y agoThat sounds amazing. Which country is it?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- specialist 6y agoThat's genius. A buddy of mine retired rich after creating property tax administration systems. They only had a few client counties. They'd just about rollout new system updates before the next wave of tax code revisions. Never ending work. Sounded like living hell. I couldn't do that kind of work and stay sane. But he seemed to enjoy it.
- e12e 6y agoRecently helped my dad clear out his office - and we came across a binder with fan-folded, faded dot matrix printed copy of COBOL code he used in order to calculate taxes in the 80s - translating the code to BASIC. The original COBOL code came from the Norwegian tax office - I'm not sure if they still publish something similar. Ed: ah, same country https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25210009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25210009 A little unfortunate that we threw it out.