LXer: No tax software for you, naughty Linux/Mac user

LXer · 07-21-2007, 05:01 PM

Published at LXer:

It's tax time in Australia. Three weeks into the new financial year, now is about the time when people have all their documentation ready to give the government its yearly pound of flesh. But for Linux users there's no joy again. What greets me at the ATO's website is this information: To lodge tax returns online, one needs a PC running Windows 2000 or XP. And the ATO advises further, "...because Windows uses security components of Internet Explorer, use any version of Internet Explorer 6."

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rickh · 07-21-2007, 07:31 PM

Hmmm! In the US, I've been using TaxAct via Linux for several years very happily. I suppose the Australian goverment has developed it's own software rather than allow outside programs. Seems to me that would be the avenue to attack. I presume their are stand-alone Tax Software packages. I would be soliciting those corporations to sue for some kind of authorization process in competition with the government application.

easuter · 07-21-2007, 07:49 PM

Interesting....
Even my government which is very much in-love with MS has made its on-line tax software platform-independent: a java applet that can be run from within the browser, or a stand-alone binary that you can download separately. Java rocks!