Comment by SeanKilleen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SeanKilleen | Hacker News Reader

This is probably better left for "Idea Sunday", but I keep coming back to the fact that:

* We have languages for defining business processes & workflows (e.g. BPMN/BPML);

* We have open-source workflow engines (such as Activiti in Java and others all over the language spectrum) that utilize BPMN and terms;

* We have open-source ways of maintaining changes to these things over time.

I know it would be a monumental task, but why not start an open-source org to tackle Tax visibility at Federal and State levels?

With enough civic-minded hackers and accountants (both of which I believe exist), we could begin the process of transcribing the tax code into an interchange format. Then as we begin to see the updates each year, we can track the changes via source control.

Does anybody know if efforts like this have been undertaken anywhere else? Otherwise, I may have found my passion project.

Furthermore, does anyone know anything about the process by which Intuit makes this happen? They clearly have workflows and inputs into them; they had to get there somehow. I'd be interested in any/all knowledge that could be opened up on this.

it's a great idea, but there's a slight catch. in theory if this were to get so successful it drives TurboTax et al out of business, then the lobbying dollars evaporate, and suddenly we get legislation to simplify the tax code rendering your project unnecessary. (though I suppose there will always be some advantages to software to prepare taxes, regardless of how simple the tax code is.)

then again, it could depressingly turn out this is the only viable strategy to actually get the desired outcome of a simpler tax code.

But my god, if you pulled that off, it would be a HUGE success! You would be the catalyst that helped our nation get to a streamlined, efficient tax system.

There seems to be a misconception that intuit is lobbying to keep the tax code complicated. In fact all they're lobbying against is federally-funded e-filing systems.

The tax code is complicated because of all the other lobbying by every interest group in the U.S. For example, banks and realtors lobby super hard to keep the mortgage interest deduction.

Tax simplification is politically hard because any change creates winners and losers, and they all fight hard one way or the other. One man's loophole is another's reasonable exemption, deduction, or credit.

I don't normally do this, but https://xkcd.com/810/

I don't have experience with BPMN/BPML but I'd still be interested in helping out if you get something started.

I'd recommend targeting the folks with relatively simple taxes (salaried/wage employees with limited and structured investments, nothing super fancy) who make more than the Free-File cutoff, and then work your way out from there. The "I own 4 businesses and have 17 different investments all structured differently with various business expenses that are different degrees of write-off-able" group isn't your target, and there's already FreeFile options for folks making poverty-level wages.

The toughest part here business-wise is probably the liability - TurboTax and HR Block and whoever have armies of lawyers and PR and insurance to handle cases like a user getting audited and blaming them or catching flak for clients over-paying. Those armies are there to protect Intuit, not the end user, but they're fairly important nonetheless.

Getting programmers to work on open source projects is pretty easy. Getting accountants and tax attorneys to do the same would be pretty difficult.

Maybe you could sell it to a smaller/medium player who does mostly corporate work as a way of undercutting his larger competitors who do consumer and corporate taxes. Plus it'd be a heck of a branding opportunity.

I'm trying to do this. I'd love some help. Java Drools, Spring, Hibernate JPA, MySQL

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tax-compactor-free-income...

http://taxcompactor.com

Also BTW I did contract work for Intuit TT for the last two years. It's really easy work.

The cost is mostly tax analysis, but those labor prices are much cheaper than developers (which we could do easily).

I have been thinking about this for a long time. It would be a great open source project. If you want to do it, I would be willing to work with you on it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com