back to article E-tax may return to Mac OS

Australia's Mac OS users may once again have native access to the Australian Taxation office's (ATO's) e-tax app, after the agency asked Capgemini to rummage through code for the Windows version to see if a Mac port is possible. An ATO spokesperson told Intermedium “The ATO is committed to providing a sustainable outcome for …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about...

    ... open source it, and we'll port it for you. FOR FREE.

  2. Jolyon Smith

    I know what prompted this... as of Delphi XE2 released in September last year, Delphi now supports cross-compilation to OS X (and iOS).

    Trouble is, if they are thinking this means they can take their Windows code and now compile it for OS X, they are going to be disappointed. Developing a cross-platform GUI in Delphi requires the use of "FireMonkey" - including an all new GUI toolkit built on a cross-platform OpenGL/DirectX general purpose GFX framework.

    There are no "native" controls in FireMonkey. So on the plus side, a FireMonkey app looks the same (subject to theme or styling) on every OS you compile the app for. On the down side, a FireMonkey app looks the same (subject to theme or styling) on every OS you compile the app for. It is difficult to take advantage of platform specific features in the FireMonkey world, and up until very recently there wasn't even any printer support.

    I just wish someone had offered to pay me a metric skip load of tax payers money to tell them all this. Hey ho.

    1. Nick Stallman
      Coat

      All things considered...

      Considering e-tax looks like a dog's breakfast, anything FireMonkey can do is a improvement.

  3. BozNZ

    Agree

    Delphi XE2 is starting to look pretty awesome but firemonkey is not that mature yet as is reporting, best to port it to the web. Agree Opensource good way to go

  4. P. Lee
    Linux

    but....

    If you promise that you are only buying windows so you can run the tax software, its deductible.

    Once the OSX port is online, I wonder if I'll be able to claim that I was running a linux box, but bought the OSX host to run the tax software?

  5. baswell
    Go

    Web based?

    Last year, ABS proved the government can do a well working, cross-browser, high-load web application for the census.

    Get the people that made that one to make a web-based e-tax and it will work on any platform.

  6. Bush_rat
    Facepalm

    A step in the right direction

    But they're not saying it will be on Mac, theyre saying they'll finally after years of complaint think about it. And of course it will never be on Linux.

  7. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Coat

    May I suggest they should re-do it in Java?

    Well it does work for the three major OSes.

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