how to create a tax return form using excel

[David McRitchie]

If you mean that you can actually file as printed to the US IRS,
you can't. The 1040 form would have to be approved, and you
can't guarantee that it would print the same ever again from Excel..

You could do your calculations in Excel and manually transfer the
information to your 1040 form.

It would be better to use software specifically designed for the
purpose, then you would also have a better idea that you picked
up things. Better to use Excel to help you make sure you gathered
and included everything.

 

[D.R. Durham]

There was a company back in the 1990's that actually used Excel with macros
(before Visual Basic for Applications) to calculate and print out the IRS
returns and sold this as a Tax Preparation program (you had to own Excel). It
was very cleverly done with various widths of columns (no grid lines) to
mimic the look of the various forms and worked very well -- I used it.
However about 1995 they adopted their own calculation engine and dropped the
use of Excel. The point is that it could be done, by why? There are many good
tax preparation programs available.

If you mean that you can actually file as printed to the US IRS,
you can't. The 1040 form would have to be approved, and you
can't guarantee that it would print the same ever again from Excel..

You could do your calculations in Excel and manually transfer the
information to your 1040 form.

It would be better to use software specifically designed for the
purpose, then you would also have a better idea that you picked
up things. Better to use Excel to help you make sure you gathered
and included everything.
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm