This is a service. What happens if some ideologue turns off whatever is listening on the government's end? Unless this forked version will then print out a bunch of forms for someone to physically mail in, owning this software without being able to communicate to a digital host is useless.

> Unless this forked version will then print out a bunch of forms for someone to physically mail in

Well yes, this is in essence what tax return preparation software has always been; The end result is a completed set of values to fill into the boxes of form 1040 (and whatever additional forms are deemed to be required), which can then be filed electronically or written/printed on paper to be returned at an office or by mail.

Not in other countries besides the US. Haven't seen a printout since I started doing taxes.

The IRS accepts efilings in a prescribed format so that isnt a danger. If you look at a tax transcript produced from efiling vs a paper return, there is no material difference besides the fields related to how they were submitted.

I have no idea how I'd go about looking at an efiling. Does it essentially send a PDF export or does it hit an API and provide the data in a specified format? I could see how it would make sense for a giant government agency to want the equivalent of a PDF to hand off to humans so that it's "just like everything else".

If you're actually worried about this, you should be cloning locally, not forking.

Or just glance at the code out of idle curiosity and move on with our lives?

Never turn down an opportunity to spew breathless hyperbole into Hacker News!