In past years, I would use my blog to share my choice of income tax software and the reasons why. In the present day of income tax season in the year 2024, I find I cannot use any of the government’s recommended income tax preparation software for reasons that are both philosophical and of personal privacy and liability concerns.

I will start with the fact that my income tax is, or should be, a simple affair. I earn an income, and must pay the provincial and federal government taxes based on the tax bracket of my annual earned income less any deductions that are allowed. The taxes I owe the government are an affair between me and my government; there should be no reason for a third party to be involved. If I am owed money from the government, that means I have overpaid on my taxes and have given the government an interest free loan over the past year; if I owe the government money, it means I have underpaid my taxes and enjoyed an interest free loan. It seems to me our society has been brainwashed into believing that getting a return is the optimal outcome in this affair, though I also believe this is a sales and marketing tactic by companies that provide apps, software, and services to sell to those people who have a poor relationship with and a poor understanding of their own finances. Whatever the case may be, it’s our government who sets out the rules on how these taxes are to be calculated, and so the burden of responsibility is on them to provide me with whatever tools I need in order to calculate my tax burden. I should not have to pay or turn my information over to any third party in this.

I’ve been on a musical journey lately in rediscovering some of my country’s greatest musicians. Music has always been my first love in life. I found myself in front of the disarray of compact discs at my local Wal-Mart, and I found Leonard Cohen’s greatest hits. I was amazed at the beauty of his take on this style of folk music which was popularized by Bob Dylan. Except Cohen’s music is, to my ear, much better than Dylan’s. Less self indulgent, speaking more from his soul.

Patrick Stewart’s memoir, Make it So, was the second book I finished reading in 2024. I started reading this book after finishing all three seasons of Picard, and was watching seasons one and two of The Next Generation on Blu-Ray while reading this book. This book was not just about his career as Captain Picard; while just over the last quarter of it was, this is very much a book about his life and the hardships he overcame while maintaining a positive outlook throughout and being guided by the light of his cultivated passion in acting and of Shakespeare.

There are moments in my life when I do something I haven’t done in a while, which causes me to take pause to reflect. Living in a culture where the social norms and ways of doing things seem to change from day to day, things that have permanence in our culture really stand out. Turntables. The AM and FM radio. The traditional wristwatch. Safety razors. And books. Yes, the good old fashioned paper book.

I use the Internet based on a set of principles. These principles are based on concepts of ownership, autonomous sovereignty of my property, and democracy. When I purchase a product in this democracy, I own that product, and am free to do with it what I like within the laws that protect the rights of others from harm. This means the intended purpose or use of a product I buy is entirely up to me (governed by well-principled laws) once I have paid for it, not to the person who sold it to me. This means that every byte of memory, every block of storage, every single clock cycle that my computer generates belongs to me. I paid for the hardware, and I paid for the electricity that feeds it. The seller of the computer forfeits all rights to those things once they receive my money, because that is how the exchange of goods for money works. This is why I won’t ever own a computer made by Apple, because they don’t share this philosophy. An Apple product is always owned by Apple; they only give you the right to use it as they see fit. It’s also why I refuse to run Microsoft Windows, as Microsoft appropriates some of my clock cycles, memory, and drive storage for their own purposes, attempting to do so without my knowledge or explicit consent, and only gives me the right to use their software under their terms and conditions. It is also why I don’t use proprietary closed source software that only give me the right to use that software under certain terms and conditions. I only run Linux and open source software, and generally consent to the use of clock cycles, drive storage, and memory to that which benefits the community because ultimately that also benefits me and contributes to improvements in the open source software that I like to use. I have nothing against Microsoft per se, just that their terms of agreement are not congruent with my own principles.