What were they thinking?

The German tax administration has published software to file your taxes online, and they promise that you’ll get your money back faster if you do that. That sounds good, doesn’t it? But, as often, they missed the mark ever so slightly. Why, oh, why does the thing have to be called “Elster”? OK, it’s an acronym of Elektronische Steuererklärung, i.e. electronic tax return, but the word is also German for magpie. If I was the tax administration, I’d avoid any association with theft like the plague. :puzzled: Beats me.

In any case, the thing is Win32-only and looks like a good example of shoddy engineering. Unfortunately, my parents want it, and I had to install it, including all the Windows Updates it requires. You can hopefully feel my pain.