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March 15, 2005
Taxes online
A year ago I looked into doing my federal income tax return in the US online. The federal government had left that up to the private sector. I didn't manage to find a free tax program that could handle someone residing outside the US. So I resorted to paper ever since.
Last year we also tried the French online system for the income tax return. We got as far as trying to provide a digital "signature," and got what seemed to be the equivalent of a busy signal. At one point, I tried reiterating the connection 30 times in a row without success.
This year the French online system is even more broken for us. You have to get a cert to get started. As part of that process, it tries to install a .jar in $JAVA_HOME/lib/ext, which is:
drwxr-xr-x 2 root bin 4096 Jul 19 2004 ext
Of course I'm not running my browser as root. So I guess if I want to use their system, I have to work around Java security. Really rachets up your confidence that your taxes declared on line won't end up in somebody else's pocket.
Posted by Mark at March 15, 2005 08:51 PM