[clug] Re: Light at the end of the Tax Return tunnel

[Rodney Peters]

The ATO page also points out one of the major limitations of the current 
etax - its help files are in the proprietary M$ format.  This is a serious 
limitation for users of other OS because, to be eligible for the 
Commissioner's Guarantee, you have to have read the relevant guidelines in 
the help files.

I've never actually submitted a return via etax.  Did work through completion 
of the fields OK under Wine a few years ago but, without ready access to a 
Windoze installation, could not read the help files.

I did participate in the 1997 pilot.  Was able to complete my return at home 
on the Win 3x component of OS2 Warp 4 and submit it via NT from work.

The only way we are likely to get a useful outcome from the 2008 trial is to 
be proactive.  A submission from a nationally representative body, eg Linux 
Australia, would probably hold more weight.


Rod

On Saturday 14 July 2007 22:00:39 linux-request at lists.samba.org wrote:
> Sitting down to do my tax return. Reading through the paper version,
> sighing and wishing for an online one that doesn't demand I use
> Windows. Idly bring up the Australian Tax Office web site, and on this
> page (Titled - Information about other operating systems and
> browsers):
>
> http://ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/content/73931.htm
>
> I found this quote:
>
> "We are redeveloping e-tax to make it compatible with any computer
> system that has internet access. We will test this with a small group
> of users in 2008, aiming to make it available more broadly in future
> years – pending the success of the trials."
>
> The page mentions MacOS running Windows in a virtualised environment
> as an example of (an)other operating system.
>
> Allah be praised, in just a few years I'll be able to do eTax on a
> Linux machine. I guess I'll be running Moldy Mongoose by then.
>
> --
> MC