
Ask HN: Ex-Intuit Engineer Building Free Income Tax Software. Join as cofounder? - ecolner
I&#x27;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&#x27;s tax season.<p>Our team is 3 looking for a 4th: myself, another full stack dev, and a NYU tax attorney.<p>We&#x27;re looking for founders with full stack abilities and good communication. Remote OK.<p>Interested in joining? Check the site &amp; blog for more! http:&#x2F;&#x2F;taxcompactor.com<p>Email me: ecolner at gmail dot com
Please include your Github portfolio in email :)
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greenyoda
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.

Also, there are strong forces working against a tiny company that wants to
enter this complex market. A company with four people:

\- 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.

\- 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.

\- Can't hire as many security specialists to make sure that they're haven't
overlooked a vulnerability on their web site.

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?

~~~
ecolner
Your odds of being audited are based on the information that you provide, and
that alone. Your return will be rejected if the government tests it and it
fails to have the correct calculations. This happens. The government gives
companies 48 hours to correct and retransmit in those cases (by law). All
sorts of games are played using this 48 hours window. And it would be improper
for me to discuss this with you further beyond just stating the law is on the
books and it is utilized. Obviously we'd prefer to submit your return and be
correct 100% of the time.

Everything you said is true. There's a pretty big difference between 4 people
versus 400 people working on software. All I can say is that probably 10%
(that's optimistic) of the people working on any given project make a
difference in a large company. At least that's been my experience. And that's
why you get startups bringing products to market with great success over and
over again.

We encourage you to keep spending the money if it gives you the warm feelz!
It's your money and it's our job to convince you to make the switch. You'll be
able to use any product out there and compare the results for yourself before
submitting your returns next season, so we've got that going for us.

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ronyeh
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!

Good luck.

~~~
ronyeh
You know, I had no idea I could scroll down on your homepage. It just looked
like a simple landing page for me, so I closed the tab.

I find this a problem with all the newfangled webpage designs... but on
others, there's an indicator that there is more content below.

~~~
NoodleIncident
I have no idea why everyone decided, all at once, that scroll bars should be
invisible by default. The presence of a scroll bar communicates useful
information! Why would you hide that?

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hanley
Maybe I missed the answer to this, but how are you doing this for free?
Obviously your business needs to make money somehow.

As others have said you should definitely put a sign-up form on your site.

~~~
ecolner
It's hidden in plain sight... but that's all I'll say.

~~~
skadamat
Hm, does that mean you'll take a % of the deduction? Hm that sounds illegal
actually, but maybe instead the software is free and you charge per hour to
get access to a high quality, certified income tax guy to help with weird
situations / edge cases / provide a personal touch!

~~~
ecolner
We would never steal from our customers. That's not what this is about.

~~~
User8712
What is this, a guessing game? If you don't want to answer the question,
please let us know instead of giving vague answers.

~~~
ecolner
Sorry to be vague, but honestly it's not a riddle. It's just not something we
want to announce yet.

~~~
zem
just say so, then. being tantalisingly vague in an attempt to build interest
can backfire very badly.

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smallegan
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.

~~~
ecolner
Yes. That's why I retained an IP lawyer to review the agreements that I signed
and to write an opinion about my plans. Every sw company will require you to
sign these documents NDA and Non-compete. The key is don't steal their trade
secrets, code, client lists, employees, etc. A lawyer can sue you or me at any
time. The problem there is that a case that doesn't have merit will just look
like bullying and help our cause. Even if they win a case like that what do
they gain? An injunction to force ppl to pay for a service that should be free
to every tax payer? Not a good fight to have IMHO.

~~~
ryanhuff
I empathize with that prospect, but unless you have deep pockets, won't you be
quickly vaporized into dust through legal fees? This is especially problematic
given the seasonal nature of income tax.

~~~
ecolner
It isn't a concern.

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jessepollak
This looks great. Doing your taxes sucks.

One completely unrelated question (and I hate to be _that_ 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.

~~~
skadamat
Ha I think it's a wordpress theme (if you cmd + f in the view source for the
page) so they may be able to change that setting but yeah by default it may be
accelerated?

~~~
plumeria
It is Startup Framework:
[http://designmodo.com/startup/](http://designmodo.com/startup/)

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kdragon
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.

~~~
ecolner
Tax pros are like developers, most comfortable closer to the bare metal if you
will. They use a separate product line that mimics the actual forms closely.
They don't like the interview style because it just slows them down when
they're barreling through hundreds of returns. Beyond the UI, there's no
difference in the calculations they work with so that should tell you
something.

~~~
ronyeh
Maybe (someday) you can build two different UIs to the same return. For
example, I can hire a CPA and then share with him/her my return. I can upload
the docs and numbers, and the CPA can do the magic using the bare metal UI.

I heard from my CPA that Intuit provides very poor support for their ProSeries
/ Lacerte software, because they are trying to get everyone to use Turbotax
instead. So even CPAs have a pain point that you could solve.

------
smallegan
Indiegogo Campaign: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tax-compactor-free-
income...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tax-compactor-free-income-tax-
preparation-and-e-file#home)

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dang
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).

I'll change the title to make the cofounder bit explicit.

~~~
ecolner
Thanks dang.

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toyg
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.

~~~
ecolner
I'm not familiar with Euro tax codes. But I don't think it would be hard to
adapt using the proper rules engine. We'll take a look but too soon to promise
anything.

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erikpukinskis
I can't contribute but I just want to say you are awesome and I hope you
succeed! It'd be an incredible contribution to our democrasy!

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mzarate06
Wow, this blows me away.

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.

I'm not co-founder level, but I'm going to keep an eye on this.

Best of luck, I really hope you guys knock it out of the park.

~~~
ecolner
At the moment it's a Java stack, but we're intentionally not limiting our
search to Java developers because we don't mind learning new ways of doing
things - we love that part of software development.

That said, web is pretty broad so if you're a database expert that also
dabbles in sys admin and node then we're interested in talking with you. If
you're a talented engineer you can adapt to new technologies is the way we see
it.

~~~
mzarate06
Understood. I do focus on full stack web, but primarily through JavaScript and
LAMP.

I'm positive I'm not co-founder material though. I'm still going to keep eye
on you guys, primarily b/c I hope you succeed, though I also want to see what
future developer opportunities may arise.

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LazerBear
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.

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pbnjay
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.

~~~
ecolner
Nice! We totally agree with you. We'll be in touch.

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skadamat
You guys should have an email sign up form so people know how to subscribe for
updates!

~~~
ecolner
Will add. Revisit the page tomorrow.

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phantom_oracle
Will this just make the tax return process simpler or will your AI assist in
finding the loopholes that the wealthy exploit?

It would be fun to see everyone claim deductions on dog food the same way a
rich guy might deduct on his horses.

~~~
ecolner
I would say that most of the "loopholes" that you're referring to aren't
really accessible to the average Joe because most of us make what's considered
"Earned Income". That's what your salary is considered and it's taxed
according to your tax bracket. Wealthy people will structure their income and
their holdings in ways to minimize the amount classified in the earned income
bucket. The extreme is when executives take $1 salary.

The AI is going to be superior in terms of explaining which factors played in
your return. This will become clearer how powerful it is when the application
suggests ways to optimize your situation and you basically have a playbook in
hand to use.

~~~
phantom_oracle
Sounds like you're going to be using some weighted statistical methods in
there.

I also read that you're going the Java route. Decent option for handling the
load (free tax returns will pull in a big amount of people - assuming they
trust the service), but considering you guys are going to be 4-5, perhaps
python with the data packages(numpy et. al) might help with AI (which reads
like intense probability calcs).

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briholt
Stupid question: How do you make money with a "free" tax service?

~~~
ecolner
We'll announce that in the future.

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rajacombinator
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"

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waterlesscloud
What, if any, obstacles do you face getting the IRS to accept returns from
your software? What about states?

Glad someone is doing this by the way, and best of luck!

~~~
ecolner
The IRS is easier to deal with. They're more efficient but all require an
acceptance process to transmit. The states are in priority order starting with
CA just purely based on # of returns and then NY, Illinois, Penn, etc. Trying
to do as many as possible.

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sergiotapia
Dropped you an email! This sounds like a very interesting problem domain that
I'd enjoy working on.

~~~
ecolner
Cool! I'm forwarding it to the team.

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victorvation
I think Tia's job title should read "Principal Tax Analyst", not "Principle".

~~~
ecolner
Fixed

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js2
Clickable [http://taxcompactor.com](http://taxcompactor.com)

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MediaSquirrel
Sounds awesome!

