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If there's one thing that deserves a federal massive budget, it's this. If laws and regulations can be understood easily by software, we would remove so many pr
by tommynicholas 10y ago
If there's one thing that deserves a federal massive budget, it's this. If laws and regulations can be understood easily by software, we would remove so many problems the government creates. Complexity would be easier to manage, but also transparency would inherently breed simplicity.
- zanny 10y agoJust for an example, HNR Block and other companies built on doing your taxes for you lobby the government to prevent simplification of the tax code, because they profit off its complexity. The same applies to almost all law. The complexity does not exist without a reason - there is almost always some entity actively funding the continued obfuscation of law for profit. So don't expect government to ever actively get simpler, because that would only benefit the outsiders rather than incumbents in the industries such laws affect, and those outsiders never have the capital to compete in lobbying and bribery.
- tommynicholas 10y agoExactly - there are tax code companies you've probably never even heard of like Avalara entering the Unicorn range. The kicker: all they do is calculate sales tax! Actually a cool company, but one that should never exist.
- trendia 10y agoThe bigger influence on the tax code is the litany of deductions, which are lobbied for by the wealthy. The value of a $100,000 deduction is worth $30,000 to a wealthy person, but probably around $1 for H&R block. edit: fixed
- maxerickson 10y agoIt's worth more like $30,000. You only save the tax on the deduction, not the whole thing. (and some deductions will of course be worth less than the tax; a $100,000 donation to the Red Cross costs $100,000 and doesn't have any financial return, so the $30,000 tax benefit there costs $70,000)