rchinchilla Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Hi my name is Roger and my team and I have created a project that has proven to be a huge undertaking. We intend to make free federal/state PROFESSIONAL tax software. Are you tired of spending tens of thousands of dollars for professional tax software that imposes limitations and doesn't meet all your needs? Do you sometimes have to purchase multiple software applications to meet all the demands of your practice? We are looking for all the help we can get to promote and test an open source taxEngine. All those who are interested in knowing more about the taxEngine project please visit http://taxengine.sourceforge.net/ and take a look around. We need people to test that our tax calculations are correct and we ask that all correction suggestions be forwarded immediately. but we need your help. If anyone has any questions feel free to write to me directly. Thanks for your time, Roger BTW - If this post gets deleted again I would love to know why. My total posts counter shows 2 but only 1 is visible? Please indicate where the censorship rules can be obtained! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAXBILLY Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 He's baaack! taxbilly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnH Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 ---> BTW - If this post gets deleted again I would love to know why. My total posts counter shows 2 but only 1 is visible? Please indicate where the censorship rules can be obtained! <--- Roger: Maybe this will help if you see it before the thread is deleted. This forum is owned & supported by its members. Our moderators make decisions on which posts are deleted based on their own judgement and the consensus over time of the other members & supporters who are paying for it. Some of the reasons may seem arbitrary or even biased, but that's simply how it works sometimes. There isn't a set of rules as such, so don't bother looking for any. When posting you should understand that your post may be deleted, with or without any explanation. As a guest, you are not necessarily entitled to an explanation - that's just the risk you accept when you take the time to post. Stated another way, we follow the Golden Rule - those who provide the gold get to make the rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldJack Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 I do not consider this post as spam! The post is not selling anything and is offering tax professionals a look at software with no strings attached. I think the post should stay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Managed Solutions Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Roger, I want you to email me. Would like to talk to you about a couple of things. Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jainen Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 >>I think the post should stay<< Me too. Because I still wonder whether this project could ever be viable in terms of getting IRS approval for open source forms and formulas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAXBILLY Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Just label it NT. taxbilly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 OK, I'm going to go by your opinon for now Bill. I've edited the topic title, and will leave it here for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulldogTom Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 OK, I'm going to go by your opinon for now Bill. I've edited the topic title, and will leave it here for now. Good call KC. It is not a real bother. He is not selling anything (yet?) and it may work out for us in the long run. If there are too many of these type of posts, then start putting them in the round file. Tom Lodi, CA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnH Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Appears to me that the forum is working exactly how it's supposed to operate - a consensus is forming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Yep. Eric and I try to be 'benevolent dictators', because we respect our members as friends and fellow professionals With only very rare exceptions, we let you have free rein. OF course, this summer we found out the down side of that, for a brief time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnH Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 KC: Your "benevolent dictator" reference brings to mind something a former employer used to say to me, although in a different context. He was the sole owner of a small manufacturing company and I was working as his controller. We had just hashed out the details on a project on which we disagreed. He thanked me for my input and then said "When we're thinking about something we're a democracy, but when it's time to make a decision we're a dictatorship." I have lots of fond memories of things I learned working for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchinchilla Posted December 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 First let me thank all that agreed to letting this post stay! @JohnH - I don't agree with the fact that posts can be deleted for any reason. I believe that if this is a "Community" site then the "Community" should decide. Not Fidel Castro. If its bad then it should be deleted! I didn't say anything wrong and if anyone thought of it as spam I apologize. @OldJack, jainen, kcjenkins -Thank you. Many of us have felt the same way before, software companies making rash decisions without taking into consideration what the end-user (which is us, the tax professionals) will have to go through. That is why we started the taxEngine and our philosophy is transparency not dictatorship or censorship. What will this community do when ATX is discontinued? CCHSFS isn't expanding the product as they said they would. The time to collaborate is now. If anyone is interested please post. Check out the example of our Quick Estimator which is powered by the OS taxEngine: http://taxengine.sf.net/example.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeke Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Now I am pissed. I don't give a fig if this thread stays or goes, but I resent some newbie comparing our (volunteer) moderators to Fidel Castro. That WAS offensive. z Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchinchilla Posted December 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Now I am pissed. I don't give a fig if this thread stays or goes, but I resent some newbie comparing our (volunteer) moderators to Fidel Castro. That WAS offensive. Newbie maybe to THIS forum but not with everything else. They called themselves "benevolent dictators", not me. Napoleon Bonaparte of France, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Fidel Castro of Cuba are examples of dictators who some consider to have led largely benevolent regimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bart Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 @JohnH - I don't agree with the fact that posts can be deleted for any reason. I believe that if this is a "Community" site then the "Community" should decide. Not Fidel Castro. If its bad then it should be deleted! I didn't say anything wrong and if anyone thought of it as spam I apologize. I DO think that ANY post should be deleted for ANY reason or NO reason. I have full confidence in our "dictators" and I hope they will always do as they please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jainen Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 >>our philosophy is transparency<< Please make it transparent to "us, the tax professionals" how this project will approach the IRS approval process. Do you have a plan for the IRS accepting efile and printer output from this program, or is that still part of the "community testing and refactoring" that your website mentions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchinchilla Posted December 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 The IRS will accept forms that are accepted by their scanners. Currently we have developed techniques to replicate IRS issued forms 100%, these our output directly from the software. Regarding efiling they just want the calculations to be correct and to follow Pub 1346. They are moving over to Modernized E-File and at the software developer conference in Virginia this past spring I had an interesting conversation with the project lead. We don't see this to be an issue. Oh...and President Obama is on our side...just kidding....PLEASE DON'T THINK THIS IS A POLITICAL POST. @Bart - What a tool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jainen Posted December 24, 2008 Report Share Posted December 24, 2008 >>We don't see this to be an issue. Oh...and President Obama is on our side<< Well, that's not exactly a transparent response. Now please explain when you expect to finish the website that you so awkwardly invited us to take a look around? It's kind of barren for a project in its third year. What I can tell so far (from that site and its links) is that you are a commercial software developer with little background in accounting or taxation and don't proofread your work. This doesn't tend "to inspire and to educate" tax professionals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted December 24, 2008 Report Share Posted December 24, 2008 Newbie maybe to THIS forum but not with everything else. They called themselves "benevolent dictators", not me. Well, I would hardly consider someone who has killed or imprisoned so many of his own people merely for disagreeing with him "benevolent". I do find that comparison insulting. And I was the one who used that phrase, not Eric. So drop the plural pronoun, please, when quoiting me. I'm now going to use MY best judgment, and close this thread but leave it for those who want the links. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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