In April, France organised a hackaton called #CodeImpot to promote the use of a fiscal calculator, the code for which was recently released under an open source licence.
Students, scientists, developers, representatives of national authorities, start-ups and entrepreneurs attended the event where nine projects were presented. The hackaton was organised by Etalab and the DGFIP (Direction general des Finances publiques, in charge of public finances).
The fiscal calculator is used by the French fiscal authority to calculate the income tax of individuals. It is now freely accessible on GitHub and on the OpenFisca forum. OpenFisca is a social and fiscal simulator and its team is in charge of supporting the calculator.
During the hackaton, Laure Luccchesi, Etalab’s director, said that “a new step forward has been taken, as it embodies the vision of Open Government for a more transparent and more collaborative public action”.
Opening the DGFIP’s calculator is “remarkable progress towards more transparency and innovation” said Axelle Lemaire, Secretary of State in charge of Digital Affairs in France. She also supports the draft law “République Numérique” which legislated the opening of source code and algorithms of public software or services.
Opening the calculator will allow for more fiscal transparency, Michel Sapin, the French Minister of Finance explained, adding that income tax requires trust between the state and citizens. Through openness, people can better understand what they have to pay and how it is calculated, he said. “This transparency is necessary to increase trust in our fiscal system.”
Nine projects emerged
Among the nine projects, created during this two-day hackaton, “Comprendre mon impôt” (Understand my taxes) used the calculator to make income tax more understandable for citizens. Other working groups like” Impôt.cible” worked on a comparer to help individuals compare their fiscal situation to others. Some projects also focused on improving the code and its performance.