A First Case Project in Visual Basic.Net: Preparing an Income Tax Return

Journal of Information Systems Education, Summer 2004 by Simkin, Mark G

2.5 Schedule B

When the user clicks on "Schedule B" from the Main Screen, the screen for Schedule B appears (Figure 5). This is where the user reports the sources and amounts of interest income and dividend income. When the user clicks on the "Calculate Income" Button, the program adds the amounts listed in Parts I and II of this form, and displays these sums in lines 2 and 4. When the user clicks on the "Main Screen" Button, the program automatically transfers the value from lines 2 and 4 of this form to lines 3 and 4 of Form 1040, and then displays the Main Screen form. When the user clicks on the "Print Form" Button, the program prints this form on paper. Finally, if the user clicks on the "Exit" Button, the program ends execution.

2.6 Schedule C

When the user clicks on "Schedule C" from the Main Screen, the screen for Schedule C appears (Figure 6). This is where the user reports income from a business. This is a multi-part form. The user must enter a business name, business type, and gross receipts (at the top of the form), total expenses (in the middle of the form), and inventory information for lines 6 and 7 (at the bottom of the form). When the user clicks on the "Calculate Profit" Button, the program automatically computes values for the remaining Text boxes in this form. When the user clicks on the "Main Screen" Button, the program displays the Main Screen form. When the user clicks on the "Print Form" Button, the program prints this form on paper. Finally, if the user clicks on the "Exit" Button, the program ends execution.

2.7 General Requirements and Tips

This is a large project, but the quality of your work will not be appreciated if you do not document it carefully. Thus, you should be very meticulous: You will not get credit for missing or poorly-documented work. To start, your project should use the object-naming conventions discussed in class and you should format the numbers appearing in text boxes as currency figures with dollar signs and two decimal places to the right of the decimal point. Your project should also contain data validation tests that disallow faulty data. A complete list of data-validation requirements may be found in Figure 7 (Appendix G).

Use Text-Leave procedures or the click procedure for the "Calculate" Buttons in your forms to perform your data validation tests, as appropriate. If an entry in a form violates one or more of the requirements listed above, the program should (1) display a MessageBox indicating the type of error (e.g., "Wages must be more than $1" in Form 1040), (2) not perform any calculations or data transfers, and (3) return the focus to the appropriate TextBox for user correction. Finally, note that all Buttons in this project have access keys.

3. PROJECT DELIVERABLES

3.1 Test Data

Test your program with the data provided by your instructor. For each set of data, you should print a complete set of screen captures that show the resultant tax values. Collect these materials together, organized by test set, as "Part A." (A points)