1983 orig. date, but revised on 12-30-87 by Ed Smith of TUG-NET, ONUG, and OKOK, as original material referred to 1982 tax forms . DOCUMENTATION INTRODUCTION: PG1-A stands for 1987 Internal Revenue Service Form 1040, page 1 and also Schedule A. The other files are named in a similar helpful manner. They will print a series of SuperCalc (tm) templates that imitate various IRS tax forms. They are for 1987 taxes to be filed by April 15, 1988. The original material for displaying 1982 tax forms was placed in the public domain by John Olson and could be copied without restriction, but no sale or resale was authorized (see however the section below called "On a Personal Note"). These templates are intended to: 1) Simplify the preparation of individual IRS tax forms by performing all needed calculations, given adequate input values, and outputting a reasonably complete simulation of the forms to a computer terminal and/or printer. Please note that these templates are not intended to be direct substitutes for IRS-originated forms but rather will perform all requisite calculations and assist in the preparation of the IRS forms. 2) Assist individuals to avoid overpaying 1987 Federal Income Tax by making rapid calculation of tax sensitivity to various permutations of filing status, standard versus itemized deductions, etc., easy to accomplish. 3) Provide a basis for longer-term tax planning efforts by allowing an easy and rapid investigation of the future tax consequences of different investments, contributions, gifts, payment groupings etc. Note however that all calculations in these templates reflect 1987 tax year regulations - no attempt has been made to anticipate future tax regulations. FILE ORGANIZATION: The template system has been renamed by Ed Smith and now consists of 15 different files with rather obvious names. You should note that with the exception of Form 1040 and Schedule A, all IRS forms in this system have their own separate template and filename. This method will provide one template per form and have each user run only those templates that are needed, but the user then manually transfers the data from one form to another (unless you use the EXECUTE files. Also, the Calif. Schedule D form is included with the Calif. CA schedule. -2- The interchange of data on the file: PG2.CAL between the page 2 template and the tax calculation look-up tables is rather involved. Similarly, Schedule A uses values in several places that are obtained from Form 1040, page 1. The 1987 Schedule D now includes its own set of Federal tax schedules because its back page has the Alternative Tax computations. Memory limitations prevent the inclusion of all these forms and the tax schedules onto one template; besides, the calculations would be slowed. Thus, anybody with a relatively straightforward tax return (i.e. limited to Form 1040 with or without itemized deductions need only run PG1-A.CAL and PG2.CAL to complete a set of tax calculations. Those users with more complex tax situations need only run those additional templates that are pertinent and manually input the calculated values from them into the first forms as appropriate (or use EXECUTE). INITIAL DEVELOPMENT: All templates included have now been developed using Sorcim's SuperCalc, Version 1.12 as distributed by the Osborne Computer Corp., and also work with SC2, and on IBM-type computers, with SC2, SC3 & SC4. Indeed, Sorcim indicates that all versions of SuperCalc should be upward compatible with Ver. 1.12. But watch out for the dread case of "downward incompatibility" - ANY FILE THAT IS SAVED USING A SUPERCALC VERSION HIGHER THAN VER. 1.12 (SC2, SC3 OR SC4) WILL PROBABLY THEREAFTER BE UNLOAD- ABLE BY USERS HAVING SUPERCALC VER. 1.12. SORCIM COMPLETELY CHANGED THE WAY FILES ARE STORED WHEN THEY WENT FROM VER. 1.05 TO 1.12 (AND SC2) AND THEY DON'T PROVIDE ANY MEANS TO TRANSLATE BACK TO LOWER VERSIONS FROM FILES SAVED USING LATER VERSIONS. SIMPLIFIED DIRECTIONS (see also "Direction Annotations" for more detail): THE FIRST THING TO DO IS COPY ENTIRE DISK, then save original and use only the work copy! a) Print directory and this file and /README.1ST 1) Load SuperCalc 2) Load desired template, e.g., /L(oad), B:SCH-B, A(ll) 3) Fill in the blanks (areas with question marks - "?") with appropriate values 4) When satisfied, manually force a calculation 3 to 4 times using the exclamation mark - "!". 5) Examine results - if satisfied, record pertinent results for use later, save the (renamed) file to disk, and/or output the finished template to the printer. 6) Repeat from Step 2 as required with other templates. BE SURE TO /Z (ZAP) (clear) THE SCREEN BEFORE LOADING THE NEXT FILE. Direction Annotations: *3) Areas to be filled in by the user are indicated with question marks and are unprotected (see "Protection" for details). Those the computer will compute usually have "0" or "NA" in the results column. When entering text, such as names, be sure to preface the entry with a quotation mark. Social security numbers need no quotes unless you insist on putting in dashes; if you do, they must be entered as text, but cannot then be automatically forwarded to another cell. DO NOT USE A QUOTATION MARK WHEN ENTERING NUMBERS. THEY WON'T COMPUTE! If you don't have a numerical value for each blank space (each "?"), and you won't, you may just skip the entry or blank it out using /B . SuperCalc will interpret all remaining ?'s as null values (zeros). *4) All templates are initially in the manual calculation mode, which means that an "!" is required to force a calculation of all formulas after you are satisfied with the input. This is done for several reasons, one of which is to minimize automatic recalculation and thereby speedup input. However, another reason is because of "forward references" that are built-in to several templates. Forward references occur when formulas utilize values for calculation that are derived from calculations made later in the calculation sequence. The net result from this phenomenon is that several recalculations may sometimes be required before all calculations settle down to their final values. Final form can be verified by forcing a recalculation (!) while watching some "bottom-line" value. If, after several recalculations, the value has not changed, you should be safe in assuming that all values have stabilized. *5) A template with filled-in values should be RENAMED when saving to disk to prevent it being written over the blank template originally on the disk. PROTECTION: With minor exceptions discussed below, all template areas not requiring user input are protected. This means that the only place where user-derived values can be entered are those "blanks" marked with a "?". All other template values are protected from accidental modification by the user and are either template text, template boundaries, formulas, or constants. Users can remove the protection selectively or from the entire template using the /U(nprotect) function. If you do so, be sure you do not accidentally modify any formula or constant. It is further suggested that all template disk files be set to "Read Only" status using CP/M's STAT command (e.g. STAT *.CAL $R/O). If this is done, you will not have to worry about accidently recording over the blank template file with a filled- in template while trying to save it to disk. (Note that the Executive's CPM+ uses "SET" to set Read Only status.) (Or you may use Newsweep.207 to set Read Only.) A blank template is a desirable starting point as there are no "stray" entries left over to creep into a calculation. This disk is set "Read only. Page 1 and page 2 forms both have scratch pad areas in the lower portion below the templates. If, after running a calculation, you see a "999999" in the scratchpad area, you have made an error. In the case of p. 1, you may have tried to claim a filing status other than the allowed values of 1,2,3,4, or 5. The error indication in p. 2 may mean you requested a tax table calculation but the taxable income exceeds the allowed upper limit of $50,000 so the tax rate table is required, or that taxable income was below $50,000 but you selected Tax Rate. DISCLAIMER: The author of this package of material is not an accountant, certified, public or any other kind. Nor is he a professional programmer. Further, since distribution of this material will be through RCPM's, User Groups, etc., and therefore out of the author's control (and, consequently, subject to modification by evil intermediaries), no guarantees as to the suitability, accuracy, or general all-round wholesomeness of this package of material can be given. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! Rest assured, however, that the author will be using this package to do his 1982 income taxes, as well as tax planning for the next 5+ years. (Note: the same disclaimer applies to Ed Smith, but we're talking about 1987 returns now.) ON A PERSONAL NOTE: At this point Olson made a suggestion that users send him $8.50 and in return he would send them a 12-page Xerox copy of the original tax templates files so if gremlins crept in from a bulletin board transfer any errors could be found. I'm afraid that the 1982 source files would be of no value to users of a 1987 program but here is Olson's 1982 address: John E. Olson II SRA 2393-K Anchorage, AK 99507 (Note: I don't know if John is still selling listings, but I've been enjoying the use of public domain software for some time. To repay my obligations, I spent many hours on a 1983 revision for a users group, about 65 hours more in 1984 - and also added some templates for California tax returns - then last year 40 more revising for 1985 and over 50 more for the 1986 templates. This year these files have all new 1987 tax form line entries and text, a formidable task, especially revamping again the old tax tables and tax rate schedules so you would get accurate results. Also, in 1987 Sch. D uses page 2 for Alternative Tax calculations so I inserted an additional set of tax schedules and lookup tables to save you the manual lookup problem. And for 1986 and 1987 the new lookup methods for the California 540 result in a correct tax rather than requiring you to manually look up the tax in printed tables. And Calif. IN 1987 changed its method of preparing returns, requiring everyone to start with completed Federal forms, then adjusting those figures with some new Calif. forms (which are included). Since I read an advertisement in the Los Angeles paper for a $119 tax program that would do your taxes on a personal computer, you should be quite pleased to get this one which does it for... free... free... free. I don't sell any listings, but if you like these templates, show your appreciation by helping out your users group, wherever it is, in some way.) December, 1987 Ed Smith