Submitted by Bill Gates has revealed that the US taxman cannot process his tax return on its standard computers.
Speaking to a Microsoft conference in Lisbon, Bill said that his fortune was too large and pendulous for the tax office computers. Apparently they just run screaming when they see his bulky dossiers. The tax office have had to splash out on a special computer that can accomodate all those 00000000s without squealing like a pig.
To taxing for the computers, how ironic. They must be crap computers surely?
I BET they run Linux now 😛
Or at least they should.
It doesn’t make any sense to me that the IRS would have computers incapable of handling anyone’s taxes. For something as central to their operation as processing tax returns, you would think that they would have over-designed the system responsible.
I can’t help asking myself whether the hardware or software is responsible (or maybe even both). I can’t imagine the hardware being at fault, but I also can’t imagine them creating specialized software that is used for one person only. The only difference I could imagine with software would be a data-entry interface, but why wouldn’t Bill e-file?
Sure it does make sense it’s goverment work.
It was designed with a couple hundred IBM mainframes, and a custom software package built on top of it.
What got ordered by the lowest bidder was a couple of thousand desktops running windows and a modified version of Turbo tax 97.
Okay okay it was a joke, but that in a nut shell is how our goverment does things.
>>Sure it does make sense it’s goverment work.
>It was designed with a couple hundred IBM mainframes, and a custom software package built on top of it.
What is more important is that the US Government is one of the oldest and biggest consumers of IT.
My understanding is that you really need digital archeology to grasp all the ancient cruft rolling around in there.
That’s why, every few years or so, you read about a several million dollar renovation project going TU[1] there.
I find the story completely near-fetched.
[1]tits up
might be a simple 32bit problem; ie. the limit is either $ 2 or 4 billion depending on wether they use signed or unsigned ints (or 100 times less if they actually bother to count cents)
upgrading all records to 64bit would waste too much memory, a hybrid system would be too complex due to data alignment… sounds credible
Don’t know if it’s true anymore, but at one point the IRS was using 36-bit machines in some areas.
Don’t know if it’s true anymore, but at one point the IRS was using 36-bit machines in some areas.
That would take you to 34 or 68 billion dollars, depending on signedness. Might still not be enough for Bill (or Donald Trump).
Three points:
1. A 32bit (or any other word size) machine can perform math across multiple words – e.g. 64bit, 128bit, etc… You would use software all the time that uses double-precision floating-point numbers, which are typically 64bit.
2. Calculations can be performed in software for greater precision and accuracy.
3. You neglected the fact that these calculations should not be performed as simple integers, but instead as either high-precision floating point numbers or as in integers that are temporarily scaled higher (e.g. by 1000).
Three points
You are right in all three points of course, except for the idea of using floating-point numbers perhaps.
But who knows when that tax software was developed and what they were thinking. Perhaps they thought a 36-bit integer, perhaps scaled by cents, should be enough for anyone, ever.
Edited 2006-02-02 07:20
Don’t know if it’s true anymore, but at one point the IRS was using 36-bit machines in some areas.
Every Intel x86 CPU that is PAE enabled uses 36bit physical addressing. GPR’s are 32bit and FP registers are 80bit.
Just a little bit of dorkieness.
It doesn’t make any sense to me that the IRS would have computers incapable of handling anyone’s taxes. For something as central to their operation as processing tax returns, you would think that they would have over-designed the system responsible.
I can’t help asking myself whether the hardware or software is responsible (or maybe even both). I can’t imagine the hardware being at fault, but I also can’t imagine them creating specialized software that is used for one person only. The only difference I could imagine with software would be a data-entry interface, but why wouldn’t Bill e-file?
This is even funnier than the article itself
Well done.
So what about all of the other billionaires in the U.S. Do they have a separate computer for each one? Or do they use this special computer for all of them? There were over 300 billionaires in the U.S. in 2004.
Of all the articles that have popped up on this, why did you link to the Inquirer? Even among tech tabloids, they’re pretty lousy. 🙁
Of all the articles that have popped up on this, why did you link to the Inquirer? Even among tech tabloids, they’re pretty lousy. 🙁
I didn’t link to this article specifically (Andrew did), but I’ll reply anyway. You just got to learn to take the Inq for what they are: a non-serious website with a biting sense of humour. Learn to appreciate their humour, and you’ll come to like the Inq.
Or you could come to terms with that and not link to them
.
It’s easier for you to come to terms than all of us!
Seriously though, I’m making my suggestion here that you guys shouldn’t link to sites which editorialize already editorialized news… At least not as the main article link.
It’s not really a big deal. It’s more a problem when you link to the register (because then I have to assume the article is totally fallacious).
Makes me kind of angry that this guy made that much .
And the gov was in on it too. Take the campaign don. & look other way.
I think we need another revolution.
Agreed. It is uber-bs. Another revolution hey, better watch that kinda talk, we’ll have Homeland Security on us in a flash. =) ROFL!
You think campaign donations are what kept the government from punishing Microsoft? Are you sure it wasn’t the fact that properly punishing them would’ve meant hurting one of the largest companies in the US during a recession?
which is why it’s good that the EU aren’t scared to go after The Gates.
and as far as the thread goes, this is what bill was quoted as having said, it doesn’t make it gospel, mor likely he’s just being smug about how much money he has.
Just give us a flat tax, and you won’t need all of these fancy computers to calculate fancy crap!
f–k no! Flat tax is crap, poor people would suffer so f–king bad.
Yeah right. Poor people already suffer. That’s because they’re poor. I thought the country was for ALL people, not just the poor, but that’s just me. In any case, my post was just half joking anyway.
Am I the only person in the world that can/wants to see that this was billy’s attempt at a joke?
Don’t worry about a new tax computer for him. Just divide his income by 3. He can keep a 3rd, gov keeps the next 3rd and the last goes to reducing poverty.
This news reminds me an episode of the cartoon series “Hank Hill”.
The army bought a barber chair for 90,000 dollars.
He gets surprise “90,000 dls for a barber chair?” then the officer reply “How do you think we can afford those B2 bombers”
Cheers everyone
We had a discussion about the plausibility of this story in our office… It seemed unlikely at first but then we thought about it.
It seems quite likely the IRS is using (for most people) IBM mainframes (probably ancient ones), running COBOL programs with a hard coded limit on number size (you specify the number of digits, I’m told… COBOL is scary), with the calculations being done on BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) form rather than pure binary form. Also bear in mind that their calculations probably go (at least) down to cents, not just the nearest dollar. Since they designed it, people have probably got richer, and the dollar has experienced inflation.
Our guess was not that they had a special Bill G tax computer but that they’re gradually migrating to a new modernised system, and moved the people with large fortunes first because they were pushing the limits of the old machines. Presumably everyone will migrated to the upgraded machines eventually and nobody will get special treatment.
Just a thought.
“You think campaign donations are what kept the government from punishing Microsoft? Are you sure it wasn’t the fact that properly punishing them would’ve meant hurting one of the largest companies in the US during a recession?”
and
A flat tax would hurt “the poor”
Let me suggest buying and reading:
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
by Henry Hazlitt
The special computer must be running MS Money
They are not using software created by same person they are calculating his taxes for. SOP.
They will not say why or what operating system or software they are using because this may give someone a opportunity to mess with the results.
Knowing how many faults Windows OS has makes it realitively easy to hide malicious code, in the case of Bill Gates fortune a few percent here or there can amount to billions in lost revenue.
Quite frankly they don’t trust the bastard, but then they are trained not to trust anyone anyway.
To think of the IRS being intimidated by someones wealth. People may not like Gates for how MicroSoft conducts business, but one has to admire someone who at least causes greif to the IRS.
Ahh… the bygone days of tar and feathering of the tax man.