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GrumpyGoblin 1 hours ago [-]
Have fun keeping this up to date. It's an admirable idea, but the tax forms and rules change significantly every year. I built a payroll system for a suite of small and medium sized businesses back in the day. Even during a stable administration the rules are impossible to keep up with. We had a team of engineers who every year had to spend weeks to months trying to keep it up to date and verify the numbers. It's why my accountant makes $400/hr and why there are no open source projects that have ever taken hold in the market.
> Most tax software derives trust from the party who maintains it (e.g. Intuit, the IRS, etc.)
This seems like something that once would've been hard / impractical but with some proper AI agents it could easily be automated, no?
RGS1811 30 minutes ago [-]
That's the dream!
It's also something that can be made more achievable by pruning coverage to the most common tax situations. E.g. my target coverage for this project is 80% of federal filers, individuals only. This is a lot more achievable than achieving coverage for all individuals plus businesses, etc.
dprkh 23 minutes ago [-]
> That's the dream!
I hope your joking.
CamperBob2 27 minutes ago [-]
Have fun keeping this up to date.
Why? These rules are written down somewhere. Looks like the spec was created by pointing the model at irs.gov and/or the Federal Register itself and telling it something like, "Create a specification for a verifiable tax model and the tools to verify it."
Next year, all the maintainer has to do is issue the same prompt, no?
RGS1811 2 hours ago [-]
Author here: if you want a detailed overview of the project, the spec is better than the (claude-authored) README file:
> Most tax software derives trust from the party who maintains it (e.g. Intuit, the IRS, etc.)
Because they have the resources to keep it up to date. And even they get it wrong sometimes. Including the IRS itself: https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/known-issues-and-soluti...
It's also something that can be made more achievable by pruning coverage to the most common tax situations. E.g. my target coverage for this project is 80% of federal filers, individuals only. This is a lot more achievable than achieving coverage for all individuals plus businesses, etc.
I hope your joking.
Why? These rules are written down somewhere. Looks like the spec was created by pointing the model at irs.gov and/or the Federal Register itself and telling it something like, "Create a specification for a verifiable tax model and the tools to verify it."
Next year, all the maintainer has to do is issue the same prompt, no?
https://github.com/emmilco/us-tax-model/blob/main/spec/spec....