Taxes, Fascism, and Linux?
So, a big day is coming up for those of us who like to procrastinate. It is the one day that most of us dread as we see ourselves get a little bit poorer (most of us) and go through hours of shuffling through countless pieces of paperwork: Tax Day. April 15.
Many of us have a variety of conflicting viewpoints about paying taxes, whether it be idealogical, practical, economic, or just plain emotional. I think that paying taxes is a necessary evil in our world even though I do not agree with a lot of what they are used to pay for. However, this post is not about any of those, it is about the process itself.
Every year I use an accountant that my family has used for decades to prepare my taxes. I have more than one simple W2 or W9 to deal with, so I prefer to have a professional help me out. I send in the forms that the government provides, all filled out and enclosed with a rather hefty check/pound of flesh for them to enjoy. I use a first class stamp or two affixed to a sealed envelope through the good ole US Postal System, the way people have done since the dark ages. I have done my duty as a citizen to keep this country up and running (as well as avoid jailtime, etc.) But every year, I get this nice little form letter in the mail from them, paraphrased as follows:
Dear Mr. Parakeet,
Thank you for sending in your 200x tax forms. I'm curious, Mr. Parakeet, have you heard of E-File? It is a brand new service we have provided for years that allows you to electronically file your taxes free of charge, without using a postage stamp. We can process it quicker and more efficiently. E-File is great! You should seriously try E-File. Just go to the website of any major tax preparer software. They might have it for free. Did I mention E-File was free? I know I said E-File. I hope you try this next time as it will make it much easier for you to do your taxes. E-File, E-File, E-File, and did I say E-File? Yeah, E-File.
Hugs and Kisses,
-The IRS
P.S. E-File!!
Now, that is a waste of money. The paper, the envelope, the prepaid postage to tell me to do something that I REFUSE to do. Why? Because the IRS is Fascist, a merger of state and corporate power. You see, the IRS offers E-File for free, but only though a certain number of for-profit third party corporations. You cannot e-file without going through and subjecting your data to a corporate interest. You cannot e-file yourself or use any sort of open-source software to do so.
There is one possible future alternative: TaxGeek
Taxgeek is an open-source tax preparation program that is being actively developed for those who file their own taxes. It works on any OS, including Linux, OSX, and Windows. However, there is one feature that is missing: E-File. This is not due to the developers of the program, but the IRS's own stance on free/open-source/non-corporate software. Note the following exchange on the FAQ page of Taxgeek:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Why can't I e-file with this program?
Because of the lack of cooperation of the IRS and the API. When I wrote to the IRS regarding this, I received the following reply. (Update 3/11/2007: a number of people have written me doubting the veracity of this. Let me post the full correspondence to satisfy my critics.)
Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Thank you for your inquiry.
The government believes that private industry, given its established expertise and experience in the field of electronic tax preparation, has a proven track record in providing the best technology and services available. In addition, the government believes a partnership with private industry will: provide taxpayers with higher quality services by using the existing expertise of the private sector; maximize consumer choice; promote competition within the marketplace; and meet objectives in the least costly manner to taxpayers.
We hope the above information will prove helpful to you.
Sincerely,
The IRS Website Support Team
--Original Message--
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: 2/2/2005 6:49:41 PM
To: helpdesk@speedymail.com
Subject: Individual E-file without 3rd Party
To whom it may concern:
I noticed that the IRS does not provide an option to e-file independent
of private for-profit companies. Why is this? Your stated goal is to
have 80% of tax-payers file electronically within the next couple of
years. Yet, by requiring the usage of for-profit companies, it seems
that a 37 cent stamp or two is much cheaper for most people. Most
European Union countries provide free government approved software to
the public for e-filing.
I am a programmer and would not be adverse to filing my taxes
electronically myself if the formats were openly available and it was
possible to digitally sign the form myself. Is this a possibility? Can
you point me towards the specifications or are they not publically
available?
Thanks!
Dr. Tim Niiler
To follow up, the IRS has now clearly marked what is necessary in Publication 3112. Essentially, one must create an organization with a certain chain of accountability approved by the IRS. There is no requirement to indemnify users if mistakes are made. Rather, one must submit to certain testing (PATS and possibly others), fix mistakes as they are discovered, and follow certain standards of practice. Finally, one must have a dedicated server which is authorized to communicate with the IRS servers and which meets a certain standard of security. In short, e-Filing is a major undertaking that probably will require the resources of a corporation, partnership, etc. - more than a two developer team can handle at this point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently though, the IRS has mentioned what is required to set this up. (see the last paragraph of the FAQ) It is a policy clearly biased against individuals or organizations lacking the power/resources of major corporations. Yet, the IRS allows people to do their own taxes via paper, trusting us to verify that what we send in is correct. (most of the time anyway) So why not allow us the ability to do our own taxes and E-File ourselves? We can verify our own data/calculations without any real problems provided that legally the proper disclaimers are attached to the program.
The dedicated server requirement/testing I believe is pure BS. Why? Because I know for a fact that it doesn't require much computing power to compute/encrypt/send, and I have to digitally sign/validate THE SAME INFORMATION with the government every year when I file the FAFSA. That process is relatively simple. Besides, having studied various public/private key cryptosystems, I know that it would be reasonably secure if properly implemented. Instead, we must trust our data not to be mined/collected/viewed/lost by a faceless third party.
Even the program wouldn't really be necessary, provided we had a way of simply entering in the data we calculate/prepare ourselves. The IRS puts out the forms to do the exact same thing on paper. All we need is a pdf or other form that we can enter in numerical values directly. We already do the same with a much simpler device: an ink pen. Then, we could securely/digitally sign and send in our forms without the use of a stamp. This is the way it should be. Implementing this should be incredibly easy and transparent, yet they force us to rely on others to do it for us.
This is corporate/government cooperation to screw the citizen at its finest.
Many of us have a variety of conflicting viewpoints about paying taxes, whether it be idealogical, practical, economic, or just plain emotional. I think that paying taxes is a necessary evil in our world even though I do not agree with a lot of what they are used to pay for. However, this post is not about any of those, it is about the process itself.
Every year I use an accountant that my family has used for decades to prepare my taxes. I have more than one simple W2 or W9 to deal with, so I prefer to have a professional help me out. I send in the forms that the government provides, all filled out and enclosed with a rather hefty check/pound of flesh for them to enjoy. I use a first class stamp or two affixed to a sealed envelope through the good ole US Postal System, the way people have done since the dark ages. I have done my duty as a citizen to keep this country up and running (as well as avoid jailtime, etc.) But every year, I get this nice little form letter in the mail from them, paraphrased as follows:
Dear Mr. Parakeet,
Thank you for sending in your 200x tax forms. I'm curious, Mr. Parakeet, have you heard of E-File? It is a brand new service we have provided for years that allows you to electronically file your taxes free of charge, without using a postage stamp. We can process it quicker and more efficiently. E-File is great! You should seriously try E-File. Just go to the website of any major tax preparer software. They might have it for free. Did I mention E-File was free? I know I said E-File. I hope you try this next time as it will make it much easier for you to do your taxes. E-File, E-File, E-File, and did I say E-File? Yeah, E-File.
Hugs and Kisses,
-The IRS
P.S. E-File!!
Now, that is a waste of money. The paper, the envelope, the prepaid postage to tell me to do something that I REFUSE to do. Why? Because the IRS is Fascist, a merger of state and corporate power. You see, the IRS offers E-File for free, but only though a certain number of for-profit third party corporations. You cannot e-file without going through and subjecting your data to a corporate interest. You cannot e-file yourself or use any sort of open-source software to do so.
There is one possible future alternative: TaxGeek
Taxgeek is an open-source tax preparation program that is being actively developed for those who file their own taxes. It works on any OS, including Linux, OSX, and Windows. However, there is one feature that is missing: E-File. This is not due to the developers of the program, but the IRS's own stance on free/open-source/non-corporate software. Note the following exchange on the FAQ page of Taxgeek:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Why can't I e-file with this program?
Because of the lack of cooperation of the IRS and the API. When I wrote to the IRS regarding this, I received the following reply. (Update 3/11/2007: a number of people have written me doubting the veracity of this. Let me post the full correspondence to satisfy my critics.)
Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Thank you for your inquiry.
The government believes that private industry, given its established expertise and experience in the field of electronic tax preparation, has a proven track record in providing the best technology and services available. In addition, the government believes a partnership with private industry will: provide taxpayers with higher quality services by using the existing expertise of the private sector; maximize consumer choice; promote competition within the marketplace; and meet objectives in the least costly manner to taxpayers.
We hope the above information will prove helpful to you.
Sincerely,
The IRS Website Support Team
--Original Message--
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: 2/2/2005 6:49:41 PM
To: helpdesk@speedymail.com
Subject: Individual E-file without 3rd Party
To whom it may concern:
I noticed that the IRS does not provide an option to e-file independent
of private for-profit companies. Why is this? Your stated goal is to
have 80% of tax-payers file electronically within the next couple of
years. Yet, by requiring the usage of for-profit companies, it seems
that a 37 cent stamp or two is much cheaper for most people. Most
European Union countries provide free government approved software to
the public for e-filing.
I am a programmer and would not be adverse to filing my taxes
electronically myself if the formats were openly available and it was
possible to digitally sign the form myself. Is this a possibility? Can
you point me towards the specifications or are they not publically
available?
Thanks!
Dr. Tim Niiler
To follow up, the IRS has now clearly marked what is necessary in Publication 3112. Essentially, one must create an organization with a certain chain of accountability approved by the IRS. There is no requirement to indemnify users if mistakes are made. Rather, one must submit to certain testing (PATS and possibly others), fix mistakes as they are discovered, and follow certain standards of practice. Finally, one must have a dedicated server which is authorized to communicate with the IRS servers and which meets a certain standard of security. In short, e-Filing is a major undertaking that probably will require the resources of a corporation, partnership, etc. - more than a two developer team can handle at this point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently though, the IRS has mentioned what is required to set this up. (see the last paragraph of the FAQ) It is a policy clearly biased against individuals or organizations lacking the power/resources of major corporations. Yet, the IRS allows people to do their own taxes via paper, trusting us to verify that what we send in is correct. (most of the time anyway) So why not allow us the ability to do our own taxes and E-File ourselves? We can verify our own data/calculations without any real problems provided that legally the proper disclaimers are attached to the program.
The dedicated server requirement/testing I believe is pure BS. Why? Because I know for a fact that it doesn't require much computing power to compute/encrypt/send, and I have to digitally sign/validate THE SAME INFORMATION with the government every year when I file the FAFSA. That process is relatively simple. Besides, having studied various public/private key cryptosystems, I know that it would be reasonably secure if properly implemented. Instead, we must trust our data not to be mined/collected/viewed/lost by a faceless third party.
Even the program wouldn't really be necessary, provided we had a way of simply entering in the data we calculate/prepare ourselves. The IRS puts out the forms to do the exact same thing on paper. All we need is a pdf or other form that we can enter in numerical values directly. We already do the same with a much simpler device: an ink pen. Then, we could securely/digitally sign and send in our forms without the use of a stamp. This is the way it should be. Implementing this should be incredibly easy and transparent, yet they force us to rely on others to do it for us.
This is corporate/government cooperation to screw the citizen at its finest.