I'm a well known developer in San Diego (where TurboTax is made). I spent the last 2 seasons on TurboTax as an engineer and learned how to make free software that still pulls revenue - about $20M at scale.<p>Looking to transmit returns for next year's tax season.<p>Our team is 3 looking for a 4th: myself, another full stack dev, and a NYU tax attorney.<p>We're looking for founders with full stack abilities and good communication. Remote OK.<p>Interested in joining? Check the site & blog for more! http://taxcompactor.com<p>Email me: ecolner at gmail dot com
Please include your Github portfolio in email :)
My major reservation about using newly developed software to do my taxes is that it has no reputation - I have no idea whether to trust it or not. Will it expose me to the risk of being audited? Will it accurately send the IRS the same numbers that it's displaying on my screen? There will be no reviews available on Amazon or elsewhere when the software hits the market, and nobody I can ask about their experience with the software. I'd have to trust it on blind faith.<p>Also, there are strong forces working against a tiny company that wants to enter this complex market. A company with four people:<p>- Can't afford to hire as many testers as Intuit (or H&R Block, or the other major players) to test their software to make sure that it operates correctly.<p>- Can't hire as many CPAs and tax lawyers to confirm that they comply with the latest tax laws. If they want to "make income tax preparation and filing free for every taxpayer in America" (as their web site claims), that would involve staying on top of federal tax regulations, the tax regulations of fifty states, and also cities like NYC that have their own income tax.<p>- Can't hire as many security specialists to make sure that they're haven't overlooked a vulnerability on their web site.<p>So what's the value proposition? Why should people risk using this product next year instead of shelling out $25 or $50 dollars for the tax prep software they used for the last several years?
You might as well put up a sign-up box on your home page, to start collecting emails. Then when you launch your beta, you'll have a set of customers ready!<p>Good luck.
Maybe I missed the answer to this, but how are you doing this for free? Obviously your business needs to make money somehow.<p>As others have said you should definitely put a sign-up form on your site.
Sounds like a great project but don't you fear that you will be sued immediately by TurboTax? Any large company I've done work with in the past has had me explicitly sign agreements that would prohibit me from going out and creating competing software with the domain knowledge I had obtained.
This looks great. Doing your taxes sucks.<p>One completely unrelated question (and I hate to be <i>that</i> person on HN): is the accelerated scroll on the website intentional? It's a really good looking site, but the scroll speed makes it very hard to read.
Have you ever thought about building tax software for the other side of the fence i.e preparers? I'd love a chat about why the existing competition sucks and what's truly missing from the software market for tax professionals.
Because this is looking for a co-founder, it's ok. Job posts aren't allowed, except via /jobs (it is one of two areas where YC companies are allowed an edge on HN).<p>I'll change the title to make the cofounder bit explicit.
As European, I'd like to say that it would be awesome if your app had enough abstractions built-in to make it adaptable to non-US systems. The fundamentals if tax systems everywhere are the same after all (money comes in on some basis, and some of it must be taxed according to some rules), a pluggable architecture would be nice; it would also make it much easier to update when the inevitable changes in tax law come around.
Wow, this blows me away.<p>Are you open to sharing what stack your team will develop with? I didn't catch that here, on your site, or your HN profile. As someone that's interested in this, that's one of the first questions I have; others may as well.<p>I'm not co-founder level, but I'm going to keep an eye on this.<p>Best of luck, I really hope you guys knock it out of the park.
Man, this is really weird.
Just a few hours ago I came up with what I think is an awesome for a tax-related service.
I was reading HN, as I do daily, before I decided to start Googling for possible competitors. Imagine my surprise when Google brought me back to HN, to a post from just a few hours ago that I somehow managed to miss.
I shot you an email. Definitely interested in "fixing" tax prep... It's pretty sad how obtuse they make things and how often tax prep software nickel and dimes you even though the actual computational aspects of filling in the forms is pretty negligible.
Will this just make the tax return process simpler or will your AI assist in finding the loopholes that the wealthy exploit?<p>It would be fun to see everyone claim deductions on dog food the same way a rich guy might deduct on his horses.
good luck but when i read something like "Our tax engine is built using artificial intelligence." it doesn't exactly make me think "this is a legit product"
What, if any, obstacles do you face getting the IRS to accept returns from your software? What about states?<p>Glad someone is doing this by the way, and best of luck!