IRS will officially launch free online tax filing service for 2024 tax season

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • UsTaxes

    Tax filing web application

    I’ve been using https://github.com/ustaxes/UsTaxes ; cross-checked with my manual form filing and it’s spot on. Print and mail and save the hassle :)

  • InfluxDB

    Purpose built for real-time analytics at any scale. InfluxDB Platform is powered by columnar analytics, optimized for cost-efficient storage, and built with open data standards.

    InfluxDB logo
  • beancount-mode

    Emacs major-mode to work with Beancount ledger files

    For me, the beauty of Beancount[0] is that it's just text files in Git. There's a web UI I use for generating reports, and a Python API with which I hacked together some import/export scripts, but 99% of my interactions with it are via Emacs[1] and Magit.

    A ton of repetitive bookkeeping tasks become so much easier when you can copy and paste, or use keyboard macros or something like multiple-cursors[2], rather than have to click tens or hundreds of times in a GUI. Many years ago I used QuickBooks, and basic tasks like importing a bank statement took at least an order of magnitude longer than they do now.

    Having my company's books in Git is also huge when it comes to auditing, concurrency, backups, and figuring out where things went wrong when accounts don't balance. As mentioned in another comment: `git diff` is a really powerful tool and it's awesome to be able to check out the books as they existed at a particular point in time. `git blame` is great for when things don't balance. Writing meaningful commit messages and comments keeps me sane when I try to remember a year later why something is recorded the way it is.

    The biggest downside—or advantage, depending on how you look at it—is that there's no default or built-in chart of accounts, so you need a certain level of accounting acumen (or professional advice) to set things up at first. I'm pretty sure GnuCash aims to be more plug-and-play, whereas Beancount is more akin to a programming library that you use to build an accounting system that works for you. I agree with the grandparent commenter, who said that text-based accounting is "the best and most flexible accounting experience I've ever had." But the cost of that flexibility is that a certain level of base knowledge is a prerequisite.

    [0]: https://beancount.io/

    [1]: https://github.com/beancount/beancount-mode

    [2]: https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el

  • multiple-cursors.el

    Multiple cursors for emacs.

    For me, the beauty of Beancount[0] is that it's just text files in Git. There's a web UI I use for generating reports, and a Python API with which I hacked together some import/export scripts, but 99% of my interactions with it are via Emacs[1] and Magit.

    A ton of repetitive bookkeeping tasks become so much easier when you can copy and paste, or use keyboard macros or something like multiple-cursors[2], rather than have to click tens or hundreds of times in a GUI. Many years ago I used QuickBooks, and basic tasks like importing a bank statement took at least an order of magnitude longer than they do now.

    Having my company's books in Git is also huge when it comes to auditing, concurrency, backups, and figuring out where things went wrong when accounts don't balance. As mentioned in another comment: `git diff` is a really powerful tool and it's awesome to be able to check out the books as they existed at a particular point in time. `git blame` is great for when things don't balance. Writing meaningful commit messages and comments keeps me sane when I try to remember a year later why something is recorded the way it is.

    The biggest downside—or advantage, depending on how you look at it—is that there's no default or built-in chart of accounts, so you need a certain level of accounting acumen (or professional advice) to set things up at first. I'm pretty sure GnuCash aims to be more plug-and-play, whereas Beancount is more akin to a programming library that you use to build an accounting system that works for you. I agree with the grandparent commenter, who said that text-based accounting is "the best and most flexible accounting experience I've ever had." But the cost of that flexibility is that a certain level of base knowledge is a prerequisite.

    [0]: https://beancount.io/

    [1]: https://github.com/beancount/beancount-mode

    [2]: https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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Did you konow that Emacs Lisp is
the 19th most popular programming language
based on number of metions?