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Comment by p4coder | Hacker News Reader

How do you do taxes in Linux? Install a windows VM? I don't want to use the web version. With Google docs being good enough, I don't really need windows for anything else. Last time I checked, the tax software didn't run under wine.

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In years that my taxes are simple - I open up my browser and go to FreeTaxUSA. In years that my taxes are complex - I pay a CPA. What do you use?

Personally I’m fine using the web version. If you arbitrarily cut out solutions, you will be sure to find unsolvable problems.

Where do you need windows to do your taxes? Is this a US thing?

I hope not because I’ve been doing my US taxes on Linux for 15 years.

It’s probably a specific windows desktop app, probably TurboTax by intuit, the company that lobbies to make filing your taxes hard and to destroy any free simple government app to file taxes.

So, not sure why they’d complain about not being able to help shoot their foot off but we all have preferences. :shrug:

TurboTax has had a great browser-based version for over a decade now

Unfortunately it is not browser based (as in being local HTML+CSS+js). It is web based, where they get all your data.

Yes, it is the unfortunate reality of the US. You either fork over all your data to tax preparation companies on the web or pay them to use windows/MacOS software. There is still paper filing by doing taxes by hand, but that's a bit too inconvenient. Free online filing is restricted to $89k annual income.

What tax software are you running? Basically all of the tax software for individuals is a browser-based SaaS.

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