T1 General Software for All Canadian Residents
Free! No Limitations!
But No Netfile and No Quebec TP-1-V
Taxman 2008
The do-it-yourselfer's parsimonious weapon-of-choice!
Can thousands of Canadians all be wrong? (mind you, we are stuck in Afghanistan)
Version 1.5 is Ready!
Version 1.5 fixes a glitch in the best pension-split search and so pension-splitters need this upgrade — see below at Bugs and Problems for a version history.
*Tax Tip* CRA lets you convert foreign currencies using the Bank of Canada's average exchange rate for that year, or the actual exchange rate on the day of the transaction. If you've sold something, choosing the lowest rate can often save you a few dollars, and this will be especially true this year with our roller-coaster dollar.
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Taxman 2008 only comes as an Upgrade so you must already have the full Taxman installed on your computer (any year's full version makes all upgrades work).
 Taxman2008 Upgrade Version 1.5 (08setup5.exe, 2 MB)
Revised Dec 2, 2009 Provincial forms for NL, NB, MB and YT all had a bug — plus the all new error when you open a new return has been squashed.
Download Upgrade Version 1.5 Now!
Pressing Download gets you the option of saving or opening the file — you want to save it.
After downloading, just double-click 08setup5.exe to install. Your data files are 08tables.mdb and taxbiz.mdb — back'em up! During an install your data files, if they already exist, are never replaced, but an uninstall will deleted them forever.
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Program Embellishments: I finally got to play with a friend's Vista computer, so now the latest full Taxman will flawlessly install on Vista (if not email me). And I discovered that the sounds won't be found unless I send out the full path (always worked on my machine!). Plus I also blew a month messing with the website. And how can I forget the billions of hours sucked up creating my deluxe new subforms:
- Pension Splitter! Last tax season it was costing me 30 minutes, playing forensic accountant, finding the perfect way to split a pension between two people. If I didn't have the computer to experiment with, I'd still be working at it. You have to put two returns into your head and juggle around incomes against deductions and then make a guess. This is a whole new level of tax calculus — beyond the ability of most accountants!
Luckily for you all my hard work has shown me the variables and taught me the rules. I don't know how or if the competition has solved this problem; but it seems to me you'd have to duplicate all the forms into code and that would be a massive task. Fortunately Taxman gives me an easier answer, and one that's perfectly suited for the complete idiot.
If you need pension income to be split? Pension Splitter does the trick! Like magic! It's fun to play with and you get to watch it do the legwork. You may have to read the Help guide, but Pension Splitter will find the best pension split, to the penny, and create a table of data to prove it. Don't pay for software that can't do better than that.
- Spouse Info! CRA has added yet another type of income that sometimes isn't included in net income. It's become so complicated I've added a subform that contains all the factors required to calculate spouse's net income. Just press the button and Spouse Info will grab data from a spouse's return, or you can play with the form any way you like. Everything designed to make your tax experience an ultimate joy!
 Bugs and Problems:
- At a minimum you need Version 1.2 which has been approved by CRA. But with Version 1.2, if you change the Spouse Info form just before exiting Schedule 2, the program fails to ask if you want to upgrade the Provincial Schedule 2 too (or vice versa). Version 1.3 corrects that omission.
- Version 1.4 adds any social benefits repayment (at Line 235) to the taxes payable when searching for the best amount of pension to split to the spouse. A user has pointed out, that it is possible that the spouse with the lower income would give pension to the higher-income spouse, just to save paying back social benefits. Old Age Security gets clawed back at the rate of 15 cents on the dollar, which is a greater punishment than moving into the next highest tax bracket. Here the clawback is the deciding feature, and who would be clever enough to guess that the best way is for the poorer spouse to give to the richer? You can't stop thinking, there's always an exception to the rule!
- Version 1.5 makes sure that a spouse's return is reset after a pension-split search. Before, if a spouse had no pension deduction, the deduction wasn't getting returned to zero and so each future search would be incorrect.
- The latest Upgrade version (revised Dec 2, 2009) cures some rather obvious bugs on the provincial forms of NL, NB, MB and YT (plus a new bug when you open a new return). I left those bugs in on purpose just to see if anyone in those provinces was using my software. Sadly, I received no emails pointing out my mistakes. It seems there are great swaths of this country where I have yet to be discovered. And considering all my errors, justifiably so!
Tell your friends to Google "taxman" — they'll get me before they get The Beatles
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