Government offices face the same pressure under heavier scrutiny. Americans spend an estimated 6.5 billion hours a year on tax compliance alone.
- The burden falls hardest on those with the fewest resources. 16% of U.S. adults have no home internet beyond a smartphone, more among lower-income residents.
- For them, and for small business owners filing on their own, an unclear form turns a routine task into a missed deadline or rejected filing.
The harder question is accountability. If a dispute surfaces three years from now and one can reconstruct what the software did, the problem has not vanished, it has moved downstream. Constituents have a basic right to know who decided what, and on the basis of which facts.
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