Readit NewsMaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
This looks great. Some quick examples of how to use it in the readme would give users a quick and easy way of exploring what it can do.
Thanks for the suggestion, I added a link to our documentation (https://openfisca.us) to the readme.
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
I wish this would get written up in mainstream media. Hypothesis being that if more people knew this existed, it would put additional pressure on Congress to simplify tax filing.
And for all the complexity of the tax code, it often pales in comparison to the version of the tax code we subject low-income families to: rules for means-tested benefits.
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
France has an open source implementation of their tax code [0]. The paper [1] gives an overview of the implementation language, mlang.
[0] https://github.com/MLanguage/mlang [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07966
France has also developed the OpenFisca framework [1] for tax and benefit rules as code, and its OpenFisca France [2] model is widely used (I think significantly more than mlang). We've extended it to the UK [3] and the US [4].
[2] https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-france
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
The US personal tax code looks extremely complicated to British eyes, but British people have a similar calculator at their disposal at https://listentotaxman.com/ though it only goes back to 2000.
We've also built an open-source tax and benefit calculator for the UK, which also lets you simulate custom policy reforms: https://policyengine.org/uk
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
Fantastic job making taxsim more accessible! We've built an open-source version of taxsim called OpenFisca US [1] which we expose in our (also open-source) web app, PolicyEngine US [2]. We haven't yet implemented all of taxsim—we only have the most recent couple of years, and not all states—but we have some advantages like implementing means-tested benefits and being able to simulate custom tax and benefit reforms, both on individuals and the population (e.g. the budgetary and poverty impacts).
I'd love to get in touch. Will email you from max@policyengine.org.
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
NBER's biggest contributors are the US government. Ironically, the IRS isn't one of them.[1]
As an aside, I'd love to see US gov research grants start requiring the work product to be made open source.
Agreed. We're building an open source version of taxsim (plus benefit rules) at https://github.com/policyengine/openfisca-us.
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
In 2014, the Policy Simulation Library [1] added a model called Tax-Simulator [2], which is a Python reimplementation of TAXSIM [3][4]. It is available as open-source [5], and designed to let researchers both change existing policy variables and implement new tax reforms in Python.
[2] https://taxcalc.pslmodels.org/
[3] https://taxcalc.pslmodels.org/about/history.html
[4] https://github.com/PSLmodels/Tax-Calculator/blob/master/taxc...
My team at PolicyEngine [1] is also now further reimplementing Tax-Calculator in the Python-based OpenFisca framework [2]. OpenFisca US [3] includes all tax logic in Tax-Calculator, plus many means-tested benefit programs like SNAP, and some state tax logic (currently only Massachusetts is complete, though we'll finish the country in the next 12-18 months). You can try it in our PolicyEngine US web app [4].
(OpenFisca US is part of the Policy Simulation Library, and it's developed by a number of former Tax-Calculator developers, myself included.)
MaxGhenis commented on Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present · Posted by u/tmm1
This calculator doesn't seem to support local income taxes, which many states have [1]. For example Maryland has income tax brackets than other states, but each county levies its own income tax on top of that. I usually use smartasset's income tax calculator [2], which also asks for your location so it can factor in any local income taxes as needed.
[1] https://www.thebalance.com/cities-that-levy-income-taxes-319... [2] https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes
SmartAsset is only a rough approximation based on standard deductions/exemptions and the rate structure. It excludes tax credits and other provisions that make taxsim much more accurate, especially for low-income households.
Anyway taxsim is obviously the more complete tool, but without local income taxes it's unusable for many people like me who live in a state that has local income taxes too.