RE: [~OT] tax program for linux
| > This year I'm trying something radical: all the forms and instructions
| > are available on irs.gov. I figured if I could install Debian, I should
| > be able to work through the tax instructions. It's sort of like using
| > the command line instead of a GUI. You answer all the same questions
| > and you get the same output.
|
| The primary advantage of programs like Turbo-Tax is printing out
| the forms with your data typed in. I have always done my own taxes
| using some Lotus templates I made to fit my own situation, but for the
| last few years I have used Turbo-Tax to print it out. I use my own
| calculations to check Turbo-Tax (and vice versa), but the time savings
| over copying the data by hand to the IRS forms and proof reading the
| result is worth it to me.
Greetings,
There are fill-in pdf's available on the IRS website, so that you can type
the data in rather than hand-writing it. They don't calculate or anything,
but it makes it cleaner. If I were a little more industrious, I'd figure
out how to automagically get spreadsheet data to auto-fill in the fill-in
pdf's. But that's a project for when I'm really bored.
HTH,
Brooks
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