Note: taxsim 27 has been obsoleted. It will persist for replications only. Please update to the latest version.

Installation of Taxsimlocal32

-taxsimlocal32- is a Stata .ado file for calculating US Federal and State income tax liabilities. Unlike -taxsim32.ado- the actual calculation is done by a binary executable on the user's computer. No data is sent over the Internet.

Normal Install

net from https://www.nber.org/stata net install taxsimlocal32,all Stata will automatically chose the Windows, MacOS or Linux version of the Fortran executable. Please test the install with the following program: set obs 1 gen mstat=2 gen year=1970 gen ltcg=100000 taxsimlocal32,replace fiitax should be 16,700.04. The most likely failure is not an incorrect dollar amount, but no result at all. You can check for what is wrong by opening a terminal window and changing to the directory where the taxsimlocal32 files have been stored. The -which taxsimlocal32- command will give you the directory name. Once in that directory issue commands to type taxsimlocal32.ado type taxsimlocal32.hlp "type" would be "cat" in Linux or OSX. Those commands should several pages of ASCII text to the window. If they don't, check that the files exist and are generally readable. Next test the executable taxsim32.exe taxsimid,mstat,year,ltcg 1,2,1970,100000 You should receive a 2-line csv file in reply. If not, check the existence and permissions (Linux and OSX) on that file.

Firewall Interference with the Installation

One of the files that must be installed on your computer is the binary executable - taxsim32.exe. -net install- attempts to put it in the same directory as -taxsimlocal32.ado-, but a local or institutional firewall may interfere with the download. There is typically no error message during the install, but -taxsimlocal32- will fail with TAXSIM: not found The best solution is to somehow get the executable into that directory. One way is to ask your IT group for help. Many IT departments pride themselves on never helping with user concerns, so you may have to find a workaround. You can perhaps download the executable at home, and transfer the file on a thumb drive. The file is available at one of these URLs: depending on which kind of computer you will run -taxsimlocal32- on. (These are all 64-bit Intel binaries). That file must be renamed to taxsim32.exe on your machine. You can find the directory to place the file in with the Stata -which taxsimlocal32- command. That would typically be in the ado/plus/t subdirectory of your home directory.

Update problems

The Stata -net uninstall- command dosn't always uninstall a program, and if it doesn't, -net install- and -net update- may not function correctly. There is an error message for -net uninstall- but none for -net update-. There is an alternative and more reliable uninstall procedure, but it is a little harder. Run ado dir taxsimlocal32 to get a numbered list of existing -taxsimlocal32- installations. Then uninstall each of them with ado uninstall [#] where # is the relevant number from the -ado dir- command. Then do a normal install of -taxsimlocal32-.

Desperation measures

If you don't have write permission in the default location for Stata .ado files, you can install -taxsimlocal32.ado- and taxsim32.exe anywhere you chose, such as your home or download directory. Once there, you will have to use the -adopath- command to tell Stata where to look. If those files are in "/path/to/dir" then use adopath + /path/to/dir to add that to the Stata search path. If only the binary is off the path and you can set a global variable to tell the ado file where to look for the binary. global taxsimexe "c:\users\userid\downloads" These commands can be put in your -profile.do- to avoid repeating them.
last update 26 July 2021 by drf