Re: [libreplanet-discuss] free and libre tax software

[Daniel Pocock]

On 25/03/17 04:59, Greg Knittl wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm interested in writing free and libre income tax software for Canada.
> https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario/FLCTPSP
> 
> Technically it's a challenge because of the shear quantity of
> calculations. It has to be easy for different people to add and maintain
> different pieces of the calculations because there's no chance I can do
> it all. This all has to mesh together somehow. It would be nice if
> accountants would pick it up and maintain it so the calculation engine
> and the data need to be well separated.
> 

It may be sensible to start with one of the systems for double-entry
accounting, such as PostBooks or Tryton, see my comparison blog[1] for more.


> There are political obstacles that are probably more unique to Canada
> but it wouldn't surprise me if the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will
> argue that they don't want to expose the electronic tax submission
> interface for security reasons.
>


Tax authorities have the primary goal of collecting tax.  This means
they usually want to collect as much data as possible from people to
help them maximize the tax collected.  Therefore, I can't imagine why
they would not want to make their API public.

Even better, they should provide public XML schemas or other resources
that may help developers.

Regards,

Daniel