10 ms·

I was just thinking that an open-source tax engine is the way to go in the future. I would like to see it maintained by the USGOV.

ISL 6y ago
Is it possible to FOIA the IRS tax-computation code itself?
- breck 6y ago
  I love this idea. Maybe someone has already done that?
- dastx 6y ago
  Feels like this should be in the public domain. Any reason for it not to be?
  - dspillett 6y ago
    The lobbying push from companies that would rather it wasn't (because it could erode their market position by lowering the entry bar for competitors) is stronger than any current push in the other direction, would be my guess.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    Intuit and HR Block lobby against it every year, and the IRS continues to threaten to do it.
    - ISL 6y ago
      It is an unclassified federally-funded document -- as I understand things, it is therefore in the public domain. Because many eyes often make bugs shallow, there is a pretty good chance that a public release of the code will find errors that both find funds that are owed to the government and exonerate people who have been incorrectly billed. What better purpose for the American Fuzzy Lop?
      - leephillips 6y ago
        This can’t possibly be true, in general. Work products produced by a contractor from a federally-funded project are not automatically in the public domain. Government-held, unclassified data can be sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or contain private information about citizens. None of this is public domain.
  - torstenvl 6y ago
    Government works generally are automatically not subject to copyright under 17 U.S.C. § 105, available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 However, that doesn't necessarily mean they're public domain. Trademark law still applies, for example. Additionally, not everything the government uses, even exclusively, was produced or is owned by the government. Often, government contracts allow the contractor to retain control and ownership of the intellectual property. The government may also have copyright transferred to it and retain that copyright. A legal issue I haven't researched is the line between a work that is a government work under work-for-hire principles, and therefore is ineligible for copyright protection, and a work for which the government contracts and for which copyright is subsequently transferred. Before attempting to FOIA the source code of a piece of government-exclusive software, I would first FOIA all government contracts for the creation of that software. Then you'll have something to go on when crafting the FOIA request you really want.
    - breck 6y ago
      proper term is "imaginary property". other than that, like this comment.
  - slater 6y ago
    Just had a look at what the IRS has to say about open-source software: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/use-of-federal-tax-information-fti-in-open-source-software https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/use-of-federal-tax-in... lots of vague stuff, but looking at the Google result, I noticed some differences. Ah, the meta description of the page reads: Open source software, while it can be useful in many instances and appear to be cost effective, may present a security risk because open source developers don’t typically follow security best practices when developing their software. Well, there ya have it! :D
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - JustSomeNobody 6y ago
    They have publications: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/modernized-e-file-mef-user-guides-and-publications https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/modernized-e-file-mef-u...
- Faaak 6y ago
  It'been done for french taxes (even though the online app is government made and free): https://github.com/etalab/taxe-fonciere https://github.com/etalab/taxe-fonciere , https://github.com/etalab/taxe-habitation https://github.com/etalab/taxe-habitation , and more that I don't remember
  - namdnay 6y ago
    It wasn’t FOIAd, etalab is a government department (they’ve done a few cool things, there’s also an interactive map of property transactions with surface and price
- Thrymr 6y ago
  How useful is the computation code though? The computations themselves for the cells on a 1040 form are not that complicated and well documented in the instructions. The hard part is getting all the right numbers into the source boxes.
  - ISL 6y ago
    Somehow, the IRS compares the tax return I submit with what they expected. It is that entire machinery that is in the public interest to be visible and audited by the public.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      You can't FOIA the data they use for your taxes. They have your W2 data, and it was sent to you, but they won't give it to you.
      - ISL 6y ago
        Agreed, but one ought to be able to FOIA the entire pipeline that handles the data. This is especially so given that the results of the pipeline are used for tax enforcement and litigation.
      - tacostakohashi 6y ago
        Really? You can pretty much always FOIA any records about yourself. In the case of W-2 data, seems like you can get it as part of a transcript if you want it: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/transcript-types-and-ways-to-order-them https://www.irs.gov/individuals/transcript-types-and-ways-to... Of course, you also get a copy of the same W-2 directly, but it doesn't seem true that "they won't give it to you" if you ask them.
    - nightski 6y ago
      The IRS does have income information, but they do not have deduction information. Deductions are mainly where any form of complexity comes in. Without deductions taxes are super easy.
xrd 6y ago
> please don't use this software to file your taxes for the 2020 / 2021 tax season. I wonder if there is a PR that Intuit filed to add this to the readme. Seriously, I wonder how much money Intuit has spent to terrify people into using their software. Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money, and each year I find some reason to grow fearful of an IRS audit and go with the company that has convinced me they are less risky than anything else. I wonder if that is truth, or if I've been programmed to think that.
- simplerman 6y ago
  Most people without businesses don't need to worry about audits. IRS, of course, still audit a small percentage of the most simple and honest-looking returns. But that is mostly for how factories spot check products to ensure quality, not because they suspect you did something wrong. On other hand, if you are audited, it is not a big deal as long as you were not intentionally defrauding IRS. My boss used to get audited almost every year for his business. IRS would ask for receipts, and once he provided those, it was end of story.
- glial 6y ago
  I have used TaxAct successfully for the last several years and they're great. (just a happy customer)
  - bluGill 6y ago
    I've been using TaxAct for years, but I'm not sure they are better. They have every incentive to lobby with TurboTax to make sure it is hard to file taxes without help. I'm tempted to go back to paper forms. It wasn't hard, just annoying the one time I forgot to copy line 13 of form 1234 to line 43d of form 5678 and then had to amend my state filings.
    - glial 6y ago
      Yeah, truthfully I would rather not have to use TaxAct either. Since the IRS already knows what I owe, what's the point of filling out forms by hand? Every year when I manually copy information from my W2 onto an online form, I think that tax season must be the biggest data entry clusterfuck in the world.
jrochkind1 6y ago
And TurboTax's lobbying is why you will never see that. The ProPublica report linked in the OP: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
kmkemp 6y ago
If the government wanted to help people do taxes more easily, they would just simplify taxes. Lobbies (from TurbTax and competitors) are standing in the way.
- philjohn 6y ago
  This. In the UK you can file electronically with the HMRC using their website. It guides you through several forms, tells you what numbers to input from your P60 (end of year notice from employer of salary and tax paid) P11D (end of year notice of taxable benefits) and a few other sources then produces a downloadable PDF copy, and submits them electronically. It's not for everyone, e.g. Lloyds Names can't use it, but for 99% of people it's fine. Why is it better in the UK? I don't think we have quite the level of regulatory capture, and still somewhat believe in public services, and spending money to make things better for everyone.

ISL 6y ago

Is it possible to FOIA the IRS tax-computation code itself?

breck 6y ago
I love this idea. Maybe someone has already done that?
dastx 6y ago
Feels like this should be in the public domain. Any reason for it not to be?
- dspillett 6y ago
  The lobbying push from companies that would rather it wasn't (because it could erode their market position by lowering the entry bar for competitors) is stronger than any current push in the other direction, would be my guess.
- bombcar 6y ago
  Intuit and HR Block lobby against it every year, and the IRS continues to threaten to do it.
  - ISL 6y ago
    It is an unclassified federally-funded document -- as I understand things, it is therefore in the public domain. Because many eyes often make bugs shallow, there is a pretty good chance that a public release of the code will find errors that both find funds that are owed to the government and exonerate people who have been incorrectly billed. What better purpose for the American Fuzzy Lop?
    - leephillips 6y ago
      This can’t possibly be true, in general. Work products produced by a contractor from a federally-funded project are not automatically in the public domain. Government-held, unclassified data can be sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or contain private information about citizens. None of this is public domain.
- torstenvl 6y ago
  Government works generally are automatically not subject to copyright under 17 U.S.C. § 105, available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 However, that doesn't necessarily mean they're public domain. Trademark law still applies, for example. Additionally, not everything the government uses, even exclusively, was produced or is owned by the government. Often, government contracts allow the contractor to retain control and ownership of the intellectual property. The government may also have copyright transferred to it and retain that copyright. A legal issue I haven't researched is the line between a work that is a government work under work-for-hire principles, and therefore is ineligible for copyright protection, and a work for which the government contracts and for which copyright is subsequently transferred. Before attempting to FOIA the source code of a piece of government-exclusive software, I would first FOIA all government contracts for the creation of that software. Then you'll have something to go on when crafting the FOIA request you really want.
  - breck 6y ago
    proper term is "imaginary property". other than that, like this comment.
- slater 6y ago
  Just had a look at what the IRS has to say about open-source software: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/use-of-federal-tax-information-fti-in-open-source-software https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/use-of-federal-tax-in... lots of vague stuff, but looking at the Google result, I noticed some differences. Ah, the meta description of the page reads: Open source software, while it can be useful in many instances and appear to be cost effective, may present a security risk because open source developers don’t typically follow security best practices when developing their software. Well, there ya have it! :D
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 6y ago
  They have publications: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/modernized-e-file-mef-user-guides-and-publications https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/modernized-e-file-mef-u...
Faaak 6y ago
It'been done for french taxes (even though the online app is government made and free): https://github.com/etalab/taxe-fonciere https://github.com/etalab/taxe-fonciere , https://github.com/etalab/taxe-habitation https://github.com/etalab/taxe-habitation , and more that I don't remember
- namdnay 6y ago
  It wasn’t FOIAd, etalab is a government department (they’ve done a few cool things, there’s also an interactive map of property transactions with surface and price
Thrymr 6y ago
How useful is the computation code though? The computations themselves for the cells on a 1040 form are not that complicated and well documented in the instructions. The hard part is getting all the right numbers into the source boxes.
- ISL 6y ago
  Somehow, the IRS compares the tax return I submit with what they expected. It is that entire machinery that is in the public interest to be visible and audited by the public.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    You can't FOIA the data they use for your taxes. They have your W2 data, and it was sent to you, but they won't give it to you.
    - ISL 6y ago
      Agreed, but one ought to be able to FOIA the entire pipeline that handles the data. This is especially so given that the results of the pipeline are used for tax enforcement and litigation.
    - tacostakohashi 6y ago
      Really? You can pretty much always FOIA any records about yourself. In the case of W-2 data, seems like you can get it as part of a transcript if you want it: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/transcript-types-and-ways-to-order-them https://www.irs.gov/individuals/transcript-types-and-ways-to... Of course, you also get a copy of the same W-2 directly, but it doesn't seem true that "they won't give it to you" if you ask them.
  - nightski 6y ago
    The IRS does have income information, but they do not have deduction information. Deductions are mainly where any form of complexity comes in. Without deductions taxes are super easy.

xrd 6y ago

> please don't use this software to file your taxes for the 2020 / 2021 tax season. I wonder if there is a PR that Intuit filed to add this to the readme. Seriously, I wonder how much money Intuit has spent to terrify people into using their software. Each year, I look around for alternatives so I can avoid giving them money, and each year I find some reason to grow fearful of an IRS audit and go with the company that has convinced me they are less risky than anything else. I wonder if that is truth, or if I've been programmed to think that.

simplerman 6y ago
Most people without businesses don't need to worry about audits. IRS, of course, still audit a small percentage of the most simple and honest-looking returns. But that is mostly for how factories spot check products to ensure quality, not because they suspect you did something wrong. On other hand, if you are audited, it is not a big deal as long as you were not intentionally defrauding IRS. My boss used to get audited almost every year for his business. IRS would ask for receipts, and once he provided those, it was end of story.
glial 6y ago
I have used TaxAct successfully for the last several years and they're great. (just a happy customer)
- bluGill 6y ago
  I've been using TaxAct for years, but I'm not sure they are better. They have every incentive to lobby with TurboTax to make sure it is hard to file taxes without help. I'm tempted to go back to paper forms. It wasn't hard, just annoying the one time I forgot to copy line 13 of form 1234 to line 43d of form 5678 and then had to amend my state filings.
  - glial 6y ago
    Yeah, truthfully I would rather not have to use TaxAct either. Since the IRS already knows what I owe, what's the point of filling out forms by hand? Every year when I manually copy information from my W2 onto an online form, I think that tax season must be the biggest data entry clusterfuck in the world.

jrochkind1 6y ago

And TurboTax's lobbying is why you will never see that. The ProPublica report linked in the OP: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

kmkemp 6y ago

If the government wanted to help people do taxes more easily, they would just simplify taxes. Lobbies (from TurbTax and competitors) are standing in the way.

philjohn 6y ago
This. In the UK you can file electronically with the HMRC using their website. It guides you through several forms, tells you what numbers to input from your P60 (end of year notice from employer of salary and tax paid) P11D (end of year notice of taxable benefits) and a few other sources then produces a downloadable PDF copy, and submits them electronically. It's not for everyone, e.g. Lloyds Names can't use it, but for 99% of people it's fine. Why is it better in the UK? I don't think we have quite the level of regulatory capture, and still somewhat believe in public services, and spending money to make things better for everyone.