Toll Tracker
When each tollware component reaches its toll target, it opens under the Christian Open Source License. Track the progress here.
What is tollware?
Tollware is software with an expiration date on its price. You pay to use it, exactly like a toll road — but the toll road has a published finish line. Every dollar paid by every user counts toward one fixed, pre-announced total called the toll target. When the total paid reaches the target, the price immediately drops to $0 and the full source code is released to the public. From that moment on, the software is free and open source forever.
Three things are locked in writing at launch and cannot be changed afterward: the price per use, the toll target, and the open source license the code will ship under. If anything on that list moved later, users would have no way to know what they were actually paying toward — so we publicly commit to never moving any of it.
The lifecycle in three phases
- Pre-toll. Price is the launch price (e.g. $0.50/return). Every dollar of revenue is counted on the toll tracker below.
- Toll met. The instant the counter hits the target, the price for that component becomes $0 and the source is published.
- Post-toll. The compiled software is hosted for free download here on gideontax.com, and the source code is published on GitHub — both forever. Anyone — non-commercial or commercial — can use, fork, or build on it under the license.
What users get for paying
- A working product today, at a price that was locked in writing before they paid.
- A share in shrinking the price for everyone who comes later.
- A guaranteed exit to $0 and open source once the toll is met — not a vague promise “someday.”
Tollware vs. other models
- Freeware:free, but the source stays closed forever and you rely on the vendor's goodwill.
- Shareware: free trial, then pay forever, and the code never opens.
- SaaS: pay every month forever, and if the vendor disappears the software disappears with them.
- Tollware: pay until the toll is met, then the price becomes $0 and everyone gets the code.
Our tollware commitments
- The toll target is locked at launch and never raised.
- The price per use is locked at launch and never raised while pre-toll.
- The moment the toll is reached, we immediately do all of the following:
- drop the price per use to $0,
- publish the source code on GitHub under the Christian Open Source License,
- host the compiled software for free download here on gideontax.com, and
- explicitly welcome non-commercial and commercial adaptation, redistribution, forks, and derivative products — subject only to the license terms.
- No gating, no "enterprise tier" carve-out, no delay between hitting the toll and the release.
The 5-5-5 Model
Three buckets, $5M each. Total: $15M.
Individual federal income tax filings (Form 1040 and related schedules, extensions, and amendments).
Corporate federal income tax filings (Forms 1120, 1120-S, 1065, and related schedules).
Other federal taxes (excise, estate, gift, employment, etc.) and infrastructure components such as Gideon Transmitter.
Toll Roads
Individual paid components and their progress toward open source.
Where a price splits into a software toll and a human preparation wage, only the software-toll portion counts toward the target — the wage pays the preparer who reviews and files your return and is not part of the toll.
Individual Income Tax
Form 1040 — U.S. Individual Income Tax Return
Form 1040-NR — Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return
Form 1040-SS / 1040-PR — Self-Employment Tax (U.S. territories)
Corporate Income Tax
Form 1120 — U.S. Corporation Income Tax Return
Form 1120-S — Income Tax Return for an S Corporation
Form 1065 — U.S. Return of Partnership Income
Other Federal Taxes & Components
Employment Tax
$0 / $1.0MPayroll, FUTA, and withholding returns — the 94x series.
Form 941 — Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return
Form 940 — Employer's Annual FUTA Tax Return
Form 943 — Annual Return for Agricultural Employees
Form 944 — Employer's Annual Federal Tax Return
Form 945 — Annual Return of Withheld Federal Income Tax
Tax-Exempt Organizations
$0 / $1.0M990-series information returns and related exempt-organization excise returns.
Form 990 — Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax
Form 990-T — Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return
Form 1120-POL — Income Tax Return for Certain Political Organizations
Form 4720 — Excise Taxes Under Chapters 41 and 42
Form 5227 — Split-Interest Trust Information Return
Form 5330 — Excise Taxes Related to Employee Benefit Plans
Form 8038-CP — Credit Payments to Issuers of Qualified Bonds
Estate, Gift & Fiduciary
$0 / $1.0MEstate, gift, and fiduciary income returns plus the Form 56 fiduciary notice.
Form 1041 — U.S. Income Tax Return for Estates and Trusts
Form 709 / 709-NA — United States Gift (and GST) Tax Return
Form 706 — United States Estate (and GST) Tax Return
Form 56 — Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship
Excise
$140 / $1.0MFederal excise returns and excise refund claims.
Form 2290 e-file (Heavy Highway Vehicle Use Tax)
Form 720 e-file (Quarterly Federal Excise Tax Return)
Form 8849 e-file (Claim for Refund of Excise Taxes)
Miscellaneous
$0 / $1.0MWithholding, tentative refunds, infrastructure, and other federal components — with room for more roads as they ship.
Form 1042 — Foreign Withholding (U.S. source income of foreign persons)
1045 / 1139 — Tentative Refund family
Gideon Transmitter
Free components — pre-committed to open source
Some Gideon Tax components are free to use from day one, so they don't have a dollar toll. To keep the tollware promise honest without a money-based trigger, we pre-declare a deterministic trigger instead: these components open-source when both of the following have occurred, whichever comes later —
- one full filing season in production with no unresolved critical IRS reject regressions, and
- IRS approval of our request to open-source the relevant code.
When both conditions are met, the component is released on the same terms as any paid tollware component: source on GitHub under the Christian Open Source License, compiled software hosted free on gideontax.com, and both non-commercial and commercial adaptation explicitly welcomed.
Form 4868 — Individual Tax Extension
Live
Form 2350 — Extension for Citizens Abroad
Live
Form 7004 — Business Tax Extension
Live
Form 8868 — Exempt Organization Extension
Live
Form 990-N — Electronic Notice (e-Postcard)
Live
Form 8892 — Gift Tax (Form 709) Extension
Live
Form 9465 — Installment Agreement Request
Live