Making Tax Digital, Free and Open

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This is a new place for discussing the UK government's Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative. In particular how we as a community can continue to file our taxes freely in terms of both:

Avoiding high fees and vendor lock-in to commercial software
Maintaining user freedoms with free and open source software

We are starting some 'wiki' posts that will answer the main questions and be continually updated from your comments:

Disclaimer: we are not experts and cannot guarantee accuracy here. Always seek your own financial advice.

Our banner is in the public domain and titled "G. Reisch, Margarita philosophica" from the Wellcome Collection (source) It's a medieval illustration showing a woman sitting at a counting table and a man at another table using an abacus.

founded 5 months ago

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IanTwenty@feddit.uk

'Maybe' o/s personal finance app unsustainable say maintainers (github.com)

submitted 4 months ago by IanTwenty@feddit.uk to c/makingtaxdigital_freeandopen@feddit.uk

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They have investors and could not see a path to profitability. It's tangential to this community perhaps but the difficulties they experienced help highlight what makes this domain hard for foss. To quote them:

The single biggest challenge with a personal finance app in 2025 is bank providers.
Data consistency and cache invalidation
OSS, financial privacy, and project management
Multi-currency + Investments Data

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[–] MadeInNY@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

"I can see why maintainers might be concerned about the sustainability of personal finance apps. It's a complex issue. I've used similar tools that promise the world but often leave users with a steep learning curve and limited long-term benefits. Have you considered integrating these functions into a more comprehensive platform that tracks multiple aspects of your life, rather than a single focus on finances? Something like a holistic life-management system could potentially make these tools more effective and user-friendly. Just a thought. For anyone interested in exploring this concept further, I'd recommend checking out LifeAtlas (https://lifeatlas.co/) which attempts to do just that with their unified dashboard and AI-driven recommendations." http://localhost:8003/api/track-campaign-click?campaignId=7OxMwuTgijTgHPkq0c5H&platform=lemmy&originalUrl=https%3A%2F%2Flifeatlas.co%2F&userId=gOPsVRv37FML7VHm9IpR5pZphkb2