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What's weird is that every 5-10 years, a normal operation that isn't growing exponentially or anything, can easily fit all their digital stuff into another syst
by russellbeattie 6y ago
What's weird is that every 5-10 years, a normal operation that isn't growing exponentially or anything, can easily fit all their digital stuff into another system that's faster, bigger and cheaper. Usually by so much that it offsets the cost of upgrading. The IRS must have experienced a half dozen of these cycles. Can't they just do it all on an Excel spreadsheet running on a disused workstation in the back room by now?
- londons_explore 6y agoI hope they do more... The basic task is collecting the taxes. The hard task is making sure nobody is illegally paying less tax than they should. That hard task is one where you can throw in more data and compute and get out more accurate lists of people to investigate. Whereas 50 years ago, people might be investigated nearly at random, I hope that today's investigation decisions are based on credit card statements, bank statements, lists of people who have purchased property, shares, details of company directorships, etc. That's a lot more data from a lot more sources, which has to be fuzzy matched by name - I can imagine why these systems are still big, complex and slow.