Re: [lp-ca-on] Netfile Application Thoughts

[Greg Knittl]

Hi Stephen,

Software Developers’ Certification Guide p6 "Transmitting from a 
Developer's Server may be relevant especially:

C. The shared secrets data cannot be given to the vendor under any 
circumstances, since this will constitute a third-party relationship 
and, as such, a Form T183, Information Return for Electronic Filing of 
an Individual's Income Tax and Benefit Return, would need to be 
completed by the taxpayer and kept by the vendor.

Unfortunately, I don't understand what it means, especially "vendor"

However, as Bob says and CRA makes abundantly clear, for better or worse 
the CRA wants to certify the tax software logic, not just the netfile 
mechanics. By the time we have a certified tax calculation engine, it 
should be relatively straight forward to create Linux and Webservice 
versions of it. I think you are saying the Web Service might be a way to 
respect the 4 freedoms and keep the CRA credentials secret. That could 
be very useful, but I would prefer to hold that thought until we have a 
better understanding of everything the CRA want's us to keep secret. 
Another reason to get the NDA.

Greg

On 16-07-07 05:54 PM, Stephen Paul Weber wrote:
> > Either way, any software we produce would have to be certified by the CRA, 
> > which needs some assurances that the product that gets used to file taxes is 
> > the same product that was certified. That seems to be at odds with Freedoms 2 
> > and 3, the freedom to make modifications and the freedom to distribute those 
> > modifications.
> Not at all. There is no "freedom to have credentials for accessing a remote 
> system".
>
> People would be free to take the source, look at it, modify it, and distribute 
> that. But if they want to talk to the netfile servers, they'll need to get 
> their own credentials.‎