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E-tax may return to Mac OS
Capgemini asked to investigate feasibility of porting Delphi code
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 Macintosh Operating Systems and we continue to test out concepts to ascertain their viability.”
“To this end, and given recent developments in the Delphi platform on which the current e-Tax product is built, we have engaged Capgemini to provide advice as to the feasibility and extensibility of the current outsourced development platform to support e-Tax on the Macintosh Operating System.”
E-tax is available only for Windows, a stance the ATO says it has adopted because “The highest priority each income year is updating e-tax so that it is compatible with changes to tax legislation to preserve the current level of service for 2.5 million taxpayers who use the service. We must allocate information technology resources necessary to achieve this before other enhancements can be considered.”
The contract awarded to Capgemini closes on April 5th, so presumably the ATO will know quite soon if Mac users should get happy about the 2011/2012 tax season or revert to the suggested solutions of dual boot Macs or Windows emulation packages. ®