No Macs for eTax

If your wanting to lodge this years tax return online using the Australian Tax Office (ATO) eTax software and you're on Mac, forget it. Actually correction if you're on ANY other platform bar windows forget it.

I find in a day of Web 2.0 apps / AJAX technologies, that the ATO still distributes an executable program that only runs on Windows. They rub a bit of salt in the wound by telling Mac Users that the software does run Mac, but only under Virtual PC (thank you captain obvious).

Now I am not one of these Mac Nuts (who line outside Apple Stores for days on end), but seriously Mac Users are important demographic who simply cannot be ignored.

Besides wouldn't an online tool be so much better (and easier to deploy)? Users are so more familar using web based technologies (cheers to Facebook, mySpace, Internet Banking, Booking Flights / Accommodation .. and the list goes on).

I think that although a web deployed version of eTax would be a complex challenge, and isn't something that could be rolled out overnight - it would deliver real benefits to the ATO as well as its users.