ecolner

Barring a fair market salary I would argue an even split is appropriate. If this is a tech company, the other party doesn't need you for a series A, they need you to run the company... which at this inflection point is fundraising.

Just spitballing here: In exchange I would be generous on the vesting side of the equation. I'd ask for half the company over 6 years where you get ~75% of your shares in the first 2 years of the relationship. The company will probably be dead by that time anyway (based on how these things go). If not, you've earned your keep.

You'd definitely be wise to consult an attorney about how to execute whatever deal you agree to do. They'd probably be able to give you better advice.

Is there a salary attached to this deal?

Dunno Linode, but Digital Ocean makes sense for these requirements.

Great write up on the psychology of starting. I think this feeling is easy to conceptualize, but hard to truly understand unless you're an actual founder. Most people want you to be successful even if they don't show it though.

Free for filers that make $58,000 or less.

nice

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.

I've done this when I was working on the Playstation Network so business users could define storefront categories that contain products based on their own custom logic. We didn't get a lot of requests to change the feature and it was stupid simple. I wouldn't get too fancy unless your users get really excited about it and ask for it to do more.

Tax pros care about speed even more than consumers, but I'm not sure there's a problem with that. It's just a different mindset.

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

It isn't a concern.

We'll announce that in the future.

Cool! I'm forwarding it to the team.

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.

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

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.

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.

Will add. Revisit the page tomorrow.

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

Thanks dang.

The scroll kind of stinks. Honestly I didn't spend much time putting it up and that's one thing that's annoyed me as well. It'll get better over time. The real focus is on the application that makes filing free right now which is going to blow people away.

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

Fixed

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.

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.

LOL I'm not even in the same league as a designer... Template fail :)

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.

* Not trying to piss off PG. I honestly don't know the rules about gathering supporters on HN, but this is in the spirit of the community I hope *

If anybody would like to use their skills to fix this issue with me (ex Intuit TurboTax engineer) please hop over to this Ask HN and send me a message (email on thread). Also check the website for a bit more context: http://taxcompactor.com

It's a pretty big project, but it's very doable by a small team from this community. Tax preparation is fundamentally a software engineering problem, which is convenient.

Need everything from testing to project management with myself floating between roles. Remote is welcome - I'm in California. We'll use Basecamp, Github, Jira, Skype? to work - productivity suggestions welcome of course. True collaboration and fair equity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7599443

There are a few really great folks that have already reached out. Email me for details and we'll go from there. I'd love to hear from you.

Of course. My IP attorney (Tennille Christensen) reviewed the whole situation and signed off on it. I have her written opinion in my inbox. There were particular IP issues around the name and the domain, but I avoided those by changing the branding from what I was thinking originally.

None of the core technology is related to my work at Intuit. I wouldn't steal that even if I was unethical and reckless... a lot of it predates the internet. But I know there's a business there and I know that there is lots of room to innovate.

I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know the non-compete it's unenforceable in California, where I live. It would be unwise to recruit from Intuit in the first year though. That would be inviting a suit.

Also BTW I did contract work for Intuit TT for the last two years. It's really easy work.

The cost is mostly tax analysis, but those labor prices are much cheaper than developers (which we could do easily).