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Government services don't have to be horrible.

Taxes in Norway are a breeze, for example. You can design services so that they are easy to use for the taxpayer.

If you want a more local example, take a look at the Indiana DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). The upgrades took it from "Ugh" to "maybe I can do it online or take a quick trip into a branch". It might have degraded in the last 10 years (i moved away) but I didn't mind dealing with them. Getting an apostille (special stamp for international stuff) on a document wasn't bad either - you just needed to be patient and wait on mail.

Taxes can be like this.

And I'll mention that the government - and you - have incentive for this. Taxes that are easy to pay and easy to fill out for the average person means that there is greater compliance. Greater compliance means more revenue, and we can spend the time and money on other things (like auditing complicated taxes instead of people using a 1040EZ)




Norway is an interesting case regarding government provided services. Easy procedures, clear documentation, but then anything needing human review tends to take exactly six weeks for an answer.


Paying vehicle tax/registration at the Indiana BMV online is still easy and convenient. They even have a cute spinner of a car driving down a road... And no surprise extra charges.




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