Seriously, WTF.

If Microsoft, Apple, or any other software company can make decent pieces of software, why can’t the Australian Government?!

Etax is _the_ most horrible piece of software I have ever had the pleasure of using – no wonder I decided to lodge my tax return over the phone last year!

If you’re like me and have a job, you’ll be wondering how to lodge your tax return. A word of advice – don’t use Etax. The ATO said they were going to support Macs – they don’t. Even so, it’s still a totally crap piece of software, even under it’s native platform! Just generally buggy, and far too complicated.

If it were to be improved, it would have to have a massive UI facelift – currently it looks like we’re still in the old Win95 days – and we’re not, really. Vista is crap, but that’s another topic for another day 😛
Besides a major UI redesign, it would also need to be improved code wise. How about you make it cross platform, by BUILDING it in a cross platform language. I’m hesitant to say Java at this point in time because I know how good (and BAD! very, very BAD) Java programs can turn out – but programming languages such as Realbasic, a BASIC variant, are truly cross platform. Of course, this was the very first time I have ever heard of Realbasic, but hey – if it’s cross platform, it’s cross platform. Obviously.

Another thing they should add to Etax 2009 is the ability to have two modes: “Simple” and “Advanced”. Just like the Short Tax Return for those of us with less complicated monetary status’, it’d be just as easy as the online form. Advanced, however, would just be the current iteration of Etax – all the bells and whistles, all the questions, all the forms. I shudder to think of people that actually have to think about, and fill in, al that stuff. Don’t even talk to me about me filling it out in ten or so years time – I’m not looking forward to it at all! But hey, that’s what accountants are for 😛

Apologies for the totally non-inventive heading for this post – if you can think of something else (that is more creative), leave it in comments.