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OpenTaxSolver (OTS) is a free program for calculating Tax Form entries and tax-owed or refund-due, such as Federal or State personal income taxes.
The updated version of OTS for the 2011 Tax Year has been released. It contains the updated US 1040 with Schedules A, B, C, D, form 8829, and the new 8849 forms. It also contains updated State Tax versions for California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Virgina.
This year's version includes several improvements such as, better worksheet coverage and printouts, as well as additional checks for filing requirements on most forms. Updating the forms keeps getting easier, due to OTS's re-usable framework, even though there were significant changes on almost all State and Federal forms. In particular, Schedule L and M went away, and Schedule D now requires filing the new 8849 forms.
One other change this year: The input and output file-name suffixes were all changed to .txt. Apparently the .dat and .out suffixes confused some people who did not realize they were simply text files. Point-and-click browsers merely look at the file suffix to select an editing tool, and generally did not know to use a text-editor to open or print them. The output files now end with _out.txt.
Dave Bender has started a project to build a PDF form-filler https://github.com/codehero/OpenTaxFormFiller. It takes OTS output, converts it to JSON, and then feeds it through his utility to fill out the PDF tax file. One obstacle is determining which PDF form-fields correspond to specific Line numbers. He has started with Form 8829. Although there is more to go, this is a good start!
In the USA, Federal Taxes will be due April 17, 2012, and most States Taxes will be due that day. (Normally the due-date would be April 15, but that falls on a weekend and the 16th is the Emancipation Holiday.)
To get instant email notification of new updates, click the Subscribe button under the Free(code) project page (you must have a Free(code) account to use that), or check the OTS Blog for status updates. All updates and contributions of additional forms are appreciated. Special thanks again to all contributors.
Also, as the New Year starts, remember that the Payroll Withholding Calculator is helpful for calculating adjustments to your weekly pay-check deductions throughout the year, to avoid under-withholding or over-withholding.
The core of OTS is a text-program. Two optional graphical front-ends exist, OTS_GUI and OTS_tclgui-0.0. You can use OTS either by editing a text template file using your favorite text editor, and then processing it. Or, you can use the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Probably most people now days use the GUI, and that is the default mode according to instructions in the package. Since the GUI is rather self-explanatory, the next section focuses on how the core text program works, only for those interested.
How the Core Text-based Program Works:
An alternative to using the GUI, is to
enter your input numbers directly in a commented text file, and then process your text file with the TaxSolve program.
Starting text-templates exist for each tax program under the examples_and_templates directories.
(The GUI uses the same templates, and processes the text-file in the same way, when you press the
Compute Taxes button.)
When you process the text file with OTS,
it produces output to the screen, and a .out file, showing what you should enter on each line.
Example-1:
cd examples_and_templates/US_Fed
gedit fed1040_2011.dat
{Enter your numbers, income, interest, etc..}
../../bin/taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2011 fed1040_2011.dat
{Runs tax program. View output lines, or print output file fed1040_2011.out.}
{Then copy numbers onto your tax forms, and mail them.}
Example-2:
../../bin/taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2011 my_03_fed_tax.dat
more my_03_fed_tax.out
{View the results.}
lpr my_03_fed_tax.out
{Print the results.}
Although originally created for US 1040 tax forms, the routines
have also been used to solve other tax forms, and for other countries or states. Some error checking is included.
While the OTS programs developed over the last twelve years, results have been checked against commercial packages such as TurboTax (Intuit), TaxCut (HR Block), and TaxAct (2nd Story Software). The answers produced by OTS have matched to within a dollar, differing only by rounding differences. Certainly your mileage may vary. Always double-check your tax forms!
Alternatively, you can edit the form-data file with your favorite text editor, and invoke the tax programs from the command-line. The following sections focus mostly on direct text-mode usage of OTS, as well as how it operates.
Example:
Title: US Fed 1040 2011 Return for Molly Weber
L7: 28,789.34 ; { Income }
L13: { Interest }
45.90 { US Bank }
83.11 { Credit Union }
;
The first line, or Title line, of your input file is simply
passed straight out to the output file without parsing. It serves as
a way to identify the form, whom it is for, and the date or year.
After the first line, the format is free-form. You can enter things anywhere, in any column,
or any line you wish. The format shown above is recommended for clarity.
All entries for a given line number before a semicolon are added together. This is helpful when multiple items add into a single line. You can show each item separately with its own comment. OTS will add them together for you.
For example, supplied in the OTS package are:
As currently configured the form-specific part (ex. taxsolve_
... where fed1040_2011.dat is the name of -your- tax data file.
(Two tax-data files are included for each form in OTS packages: an *example.dat and a blank *template.dat.
The idea is to save the template to a personally meaningful file-name and fill in the lines with your numbers.
You can maintain returns for multiple people over multiple years this way.)
A file such as fed1040_2011.out is produced and is automatically listed to the screen.
You can print the file or store it for your records.
Capital Gains/Losses are Recorded as:
The US Fed 1040, version includes the Schedule-A for itemized deductions, Schedule-B for interest, and Schedule-D for capital gains
calculations, as well as the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) worksheet
calculations. Schedule-C for business taxes, is also provided as a separate program.
Versions for several State Income Taxes, including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina are included. As other forms are contributed, they will be posted.
Both source code and compiled executables are available for download.
Example form-data files are included. Typical package size is about 0.5 MB (fairly small).
Unpacking
Tar packages contain precompiled executables for Linux or MacOSx.
Zip packages contain precompiled executables for Microsoft PCs.
Source code and compilation instructions are also provided in all versions.
(Uninstall by simply deleting files in the directory. No registry entries are made.)
Other Links
Feedback welcome.
Aston Roberts - aston_roberts@yahoo.com
To Compile:
Pre-compiled versions are posted for most major platforms. You should not need to re-compile unless
you modify the program, or there is an incompatibility with your platform.
To re-compile, normally you would invoke the Build-script at the top-level to compile the whole package. But you can also
compile individual programs directly, as for example:
cc taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2011.c -o taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2011
To Run:
Normally, you would invoke the tax programs from the graphical interface (Run_taxsolve_GUI), but you
could also invoke individual programs directly, as for example:
taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2011 fed1040_2011.dat
Examples:
Usage Notes:
For information about how OTS works and how it is written, see:
Program Design for Tax Rules
buy_cost date
sale_value date
Date is xx-yy-zz, where xx is the two-digit month,
yy is the day, and zz is the last two digits of the year. (Yes, this is Y2K proof.)
Example:
-3658.22 12-15-99 { 100 Shares XOM }
4209.95 1-25-02
The dates are required to apply the proper short-term or long-term capital gains rates on Federal taxes, but are not
required for State tax forms.
Download OpenTaxSolver
OpenTaxSolver for this year's taxes (2011 Tax Year) (and previous years) can be downloaded from:
Download OpenTaxSolver - 2011 OTS Download-Page
Packages are tar-gzip (.tgz) or zip files. To unpack, tar xfz package.tgz or unzip package.zip .
Will unpack into a directory of the same name. (To see contents prior to unpacking, tar tfz package.tgz or zip -l package.zip .)
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