This isn’t much of a diary, but I just wanted to highlight this great NYT opinion piece about filing taxes in the US. It’s yet another story of large, private companies in the US devouring good government for billions in profit, and then spending millions on lobbyists to buy up Congress Critters to protect those profits.
This is from the email teaser to the opinion piece,
There’s a tax season villain, and it’s not the I.R.S.
For instance, here’s a memorable description of the tax filing process for a businessman in the Netherlands: “He pops a beer, he goes online, the government’s filled in every line. If the numbers look right, he clicks OK. It takes 5 minutes.” In Japan, the government sends postcards to taxpayers. If the information is right, there’s no need to respond. In Sweden some people receive text messages from the government with their basic tax information. Filing is as simple as answering “yes.”