Reply to post: You see this in every bureaucracy

Feature bloat: Psychology boffins find people tend to add elements to solve a problem rather than take things away

DS999 Silver badge

You see this in every bureaucracy

Look at tax codes for example. There may have been a reason for every single credit or deduction to be added to the code at one time (even if the reason was "because the right people were bribed") but when it doesn't work due to i.e. allowing highly profitable companies or very wealthy individuals to pay little or no tax, the response is "we need to add to the code to address this situation". Rather than look what credits/deductions allow them to do this and ask "is this still necessary" or "can its scope be narrowed"?

So people are talking about revenue taxes on business and wealth taxes on billionaires, rather than addressing the credits/deductions that allow them to do this in the first place.

Which is why I've always thought that redoing the tax code should take a clean sheet approach where a high bar to justify including any deductions or credits (beyond a phase out period to address inequities due to changing things people may have planned years for in advance like mortgage interest deductions in the US)

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