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This is either a where-to-download question or a software question.

The federal tax forms can be filled out with free Foxit pdf software. One can easily save the basic data in an XML file and import it into the next year's form. Yay!

A couple of years ago New York made its fillable pdfs incompatible with anything but Adobe. I do not like Adobe and my computer and I are happier when it is not installed on my computer. For 2017 I can find a plain non-fillable pdf to download, but not for 2016. (I am late filing but it's not a disaster because they owe me, not the other way around.)

Where may I download a non-fillable set of NY forms? I'm looking for IT-201, IT-2 and IT-272 (tuition deduction).

Or, even better: is there a workaround to the incompatibility problem? Perhaps a browser extension?

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    You can install Adobe products in a virtual machine if you don't want them on your computer directly. – void_ptr Mar 31 '18 at 18:45
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For IT-201 and IT-2, you can get non-fillable forms from the NYS website from the same starting point you get the fillable forms from. On the list of 2016 personal income tax forms, find the form number you want, and click on the link in the left-hand column. This link will say "(Fill-in)", but go ahead anyway. You'll have to go through one or two pages where you must choose a link near the bottom saying something along the lines of "not file electronically" or "print standard paper form".

You'll get to the following files for those two forms:

along with links to PDFs of instructions.

For IT-272, the link goes straight to a fill-in PDF (https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/2016/inc/it272_2016_fill_in.pdf), with no non-fillable option. However, this looks to me to be a "normal" fill-in PDF, not crazy like the enhanced fill-in IT-201. Most non-Adobe readers should be able to open and print it. I don't have a printer nearby or Foxit on my computer, but I was able to open and view it, with no apparent problems, with two different non-Adobe programs: Evince and Xpdf.

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  • Thanks, whew. So, what do you like about Evince and Xpdf? I like Foxit but copying text and then pasting elsewhere tends to get me a carriage return after every line. – aparente001 Apr 2 '18 at 4:10
  • @aparente001 They're quick to install on my Linux computer, so I've gotten used to using them. To be honest, when the going gets tough I usually give in and use Adobe's reader. I did notice a similar thing today, more carriage returns copying from Evince than from Adobe for an IRS PDF. – Dan Getz Apr 2 '18 at 4:15

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