[ale] Rant[ish]: government and states requiring proprietary software

mike at trausch.us mike at trausch.us
Mon Sep 17 13:48:19 EDT 2012


On 09/17/2012 01:44 PM, Neal Rhodes wrote:
> Well, if we're going to get into a snit about it, let's consider that if
> you are a corporation, you must file an IRS 941 report each quarter
> regarding your wages.   You have two choices:

My payroll processor does that; I don't yet have the software written
for us to be able to provably handle payroll, and I therefore defer that
liability to a third party for the moment.  I am planning to move away
from their services in a year or two, once I have the ability to write
the code and also have a definitive and correct list of all appropriate
tables...

> A. Sign up for one of several proprietary services and and pay a fee in
> order to enter your two page 941 data.
> B. Fill in a paper 941 and stick a stamp on it.   This requires somebody
> to then manually data-enter the paper form.
> 
> You'd think that it should take the IRS 2 man-days to assign the job of
> a web data entry form to an intern, and the payback period of
> eliminating data entry for that effort would be..... maybe a week.  
> Probably less if you consider the elimination of handling all that mail
> and paper.
> 
> However, doing that would eliminate the business of the proprietary
> companies that now charge a fee for entry.   I suspect they have a
> lobbyist.
> 
> Out of sheer spite and laziness, I still do paper and mail it.

As I said, I have a processor.  $50/month isn't bad for ease of mind
when it comes to something as complex as multi-state payroll.

	--- Mike

-- 
A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
                                   --- Carveth Read, “Logic”

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