Slashdot Mirror
French Government Online-Why Isn't the U.S.?
DullTrev asks: "Looks like the French are pushing forward once again with their online government plans. The BBC News site has this article about the new portal about to be launched. The article says the portal 'will give every citizen a personal internet portal allowing them to pay taxes online, register a child for a state school, or be reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time'. The UK government has had this portal up for a while, and are steadily expanding their services. This is all within the EU government systems that are (not surprisingly) encouraging online government all over the place. How does this kind of thing compare to the US?"
Simple answer: Because we're an order of magnitude bigger. More population. More beaurocracy (yes, I know it's mis-spelled). More variables. Instead of having 30 million personal pages listing the same information, we need well over a hundred million pages, with different senators, different information, more extensive tax data... not to mention, someone has to decide who's in charge of all this. Does the IRS have to run the site? Who else would?
Population of US: 250 million
Population of France: 50 million
And France has nothing like states' rights that the US has to cope with that makes us a patchwork of sometimes conflicting laws.
What is firstgov.com?
Privacy concerns will hold off the US Government attempts to do something similar. (regardless if most Americans are ignorant of how just little privacy when it comes to personal records they have - they still hold tightly to the thought of "I still have some left"
Plus, I think the US is a little busy now with something more important than being online.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The US has had a government portal at firstgov.gov for quite some time.
The US has the problem that there are many State and Federal agencies that would have to communicate and cooperate. They are about as likely to do this as Bill Gates is to write an SMP patch for the Linux kernel. European countries have a history of central management and of delination and communication between agencies. It is this infrastructure that enables these sorts of projects to be built.
The US is liable to get disparate information portals that provide for specific needs in a variety of ways. The odds however of someone who lives in CA and has a business in NY having a single portal for all of his needs is practically zero. One web company had this idea and failed miserably. The nature of the US goverment makes it hard to imagine this happening. Germany however with its Federal system and different history and social infrastructure is liable to do this.
The main reason for the US not getting there is the social infrastructure that actively encorages States to go their own way and buck the Washington line. This tends not to exist within the European countries as even beauracrats at the local level are considered under the same banner as those at the national level.
An EU wide portal is also a possibility as there is a history of inter-country cooperation on large scale projects (Concorde anyone) and there is that ethos of distributed and deliniated goverment in a manner that does not exist in the US.
Its more a social thing than a technology thing.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
A few months ago I got a virus infection and the doctor gave me some anti-biotics. Out of curiosity I went to the FDA website and was surprised to learn that the drug companies can do some of things to certify their drugs online.
The US government also has an IP network physically separate for classified information. I have seen a lot of work get done over it.
Admittedly, I haven't actually filled in the forms properly (tax return? No thanks! TV license? No thanks!), but it all looks pretty good.
Tom.
Oh arse
I was just looking at a job ad in the paper - probably a bit ambitious for me, but why not give it a go? I thought. "Head of Web Services" for the UK Home Office; that'd look great on the CV, looks like a fun job too, and well paid. "For details, write to:..." it says. Ah, but look - there's an URL for the outsourced recruitment firm they've retained! I'll use that.
Check it out on their website: you couldn't make this up...
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
France and England are both dominated by a large central government. That kind of government situation lends itself to one large storehouse of information. The United States of America is a union of (ideally) independent states.
The federal government's purview does not cover the information that is of most relevance to the citizenry. The service that the federal government could provide would be limited to searching for information and paying taxes (which the majority of us don't do anyway because of the payroll deduction, but that's a separate discussion).
The utility of this service to the average citizen would be far less than the cost of developing it and maintaining it. This service is better left up to the states where the people live. Those states who want it can pay for the development and maintenance of their own portal, but we all shouldn't be forced to pay for something that would not benefit us.
The biggest reason why there isn't a national portal for most of this stuff is that many of the functions are a matter of state law.
Car inspections, school registrations etc are not federal government functions.
Also I think civil liberties minded folks would be a little concerned about a centralized data base that had all this information in it. Besides the potential for official and unofficial abuse, you just know someone would come up with the idea to raise money by selling the database.
I suspect that France has a much higher percentage of citizens with real ISPs than the United States, so naturally this idea would fly beter over there.
Also, and I am generalising here, I think it's generally known that Europeans tend to be more liberal to new systems and technologies than North Americans.
I think it will be at least 2005 before something like this becomes the norm in the US. And then another 5 years to get people to trust it after it's hacked (because it would inevitably be overhyped, integrated with .NET and passport, and get out the door before it's ready.) [Please let's not let this discussion turn into an overblown anti MS rant...]
It's a ptetty big initiative, but they are making a lot of progress. It's looking like every taxpayer is going to have a government issue PKI key.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Dude! Have you ever tried to have a dinner party with six guests? Fairly easy, right? Try to put on the same dinner party with 28 guests. All you need to do is make more, right? It ain't quite that easy.
The United States is a big place.
InitZero
Not sure how valid a comparison it is with those saying "Not in the US as we've so many federal differences" but just last week I paid my local (n.b. similar to state, up to a point) taxes (Taxe d'habitation) here in France via the central gov portal site.
Really does seem to work OK. One can only hope that one benefit will be to improve efficiency and result in lower taxes. However I somehow doubt it!!
Excuse me, but privacy laws in europe are stronger than in the US. Ask Microsoft or any other big american companies about that.
I don't think whoever submitted this story meant to say that the US gov't has a lousy or non-existant presence on the web. He just asked for a comparison between European and US pages.
Personally, I think the US Federal and most state webpages are pretty good tools for locating information. It is certainly a hell of alot easier than navigating a maze of phone numbers or finding someone that you know who already knows the information that you need.
The only thing that many government websites are missing are electronic forms. That lack has more to do with budgetary constraints than anything else though.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
He doesn't know that clicking on an e-mail attachment (that seems to come from secretary@dutchgovernment.nl) could let a trojan loose on his system, one that becomes active AFTER authentication with smartcard/iris scan, one that changes keystrokes but doesn't show that to the user.
Doing things like this is acceptable for companies, because they are profit based and take risks all the time. For governments, it is totally unacceptable that this is possible, but unfortunately they have spent literally millions of euro's on pilots and can't reverse the process. Somebody has to make clear to them that the internet + computers == not a secure infrastructure, but well ... is there anybody who will listen?
My apologies for my bad english, I'm Dutch.
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
The US took its first major step last month with the Microsoft settlement: MSN will be the "US Government online."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Some of these services are already available online depending on what state you live in. Things like registering your kid for school, registering your car, and paying tax (not Federal of course) are all done on a state level here, which is the way it should be. One of the principles our country is founded on is the belief that many things are best done on the state and local levels. Putting these services online at a federal government level just wouldn't make much sense, and it would clearly take power away from state governments, to do things in a way that is best for their specific residents.
Here in Massachusetts, we can already do most of the stuff you mentioned online. You can renew your driver's license, car registration, etc. online at the RMV's web site. You can also pay your state taxes online or by phone. People in the US can electronically file with the IRS, too.
We are a country based on decentralized government. Centralizing web services that should be run at a state level just doesn't make sense.
It is even in three languages English, Greek and Turkish, and works in Opera for Linux. So, I would say it's pretty cool.
Leonid Mamtchenkov
According to this NY Times article, the US government is actually looking to implement their own secure network for their various agencies to share that would be separate from the larger network. I found the paragraph below quite interesting when taken in the context of the open-ness that this thread is asking about: "Some in the technology industry fear what they see as the implications for the Internet: a separate cyberspace system for the government, they say, might create a trend in which other institutions as well would begin building their own networks separate from the Net. Civil libertarians, meanwhile, ask whether the idea would make the government less accessible to the people."
Didn't anybody here see Startup.com?. It was a documentary (screened abut half a year ago in a few theaters) about the travails of a startup known as Govworks. As a side point, one of the things I found interesting about this film was how many of the characters were so like people I had worked with. (I think it should be required viewing for anyone who has been or is involved with any kind of internet "startup"...preferably before one gets too deeply involved.)
You're using her as bait, Master!
285,573,701 from the US Census page (www.census.gov).
As for the population of France, the 1999 French Census came up with 60.185.831 people, which I'll round up to 61 million.
But, yes, point taken. The U.S. has about 4 times as many people as the French.
Furthermore, I will add that our government also supports the use of Linux, as this this page states, people can download a java version of the forms filling tool, that allows online filing of a zillion of various things.
Actually, it wasn't the French gov't, but 3 french association (one jewish and two antiracism association IIRC, but maybe 2 jew and 1 antiracism).
That ain't because it comes from France that it has been made by the French government, you know. We're less communist than the professional trollers think.
sigmentation fault
The point is, the more information you need to process, the more efficient you need to be, to do as good a job.
The US Govt used to have -some- computer systems. But a certain President Bush got rid o his e-mail account. Anyone know who that idiot could be?
The banks in America seem to handle online transfers. There are plenty of companies which do online checking. The weather information centers can handle an entire continent of meteorological data, online. Volume ain't the issue, guys! GWB's hatred of the digital is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
England is one of the countries in the UK. The other 3 are Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each one of the has unique characteristics and laws. Only Ignorant Americans think that that UK is England.
http://www.state.pa.us/
The way they do some of their fill out forms is absolutely retarded though (activex???? java??? For a FORM???)
The Polish Government has such a portal, but if you want to do business with the Polish government you have to be running windows and have a proprietary piece of Windows software*. Sun had to get a PC with Windows so they could do business in Poland.
With Asscroft and Bushleague in control and on the MS payroll, you know what will happen here.
*Apple Poland fought to have the software ported to other platforms but lost.
photosMy Photostream
Some things mentioned that are being done in Europe can be implemented in the U.S. on a federal level, such as IRS, immigration, etc. But most actual services to the citizens would have to be done on the state or county level, like voter/car/school registration and workers benefits.
We just don't have the same structure as the Europeans to have a one-stop-shopping comprehensive service portal.
If the Constitution were being more closely followed these days, the on-line services of the federal government would actually be almost nothing.
That would Grand Frère. And it is not seen as something good.
In France, there is less distrust in (and more reliance upon) the government. Yes. But there is less reliance upon (and more distrust in) private corporations.
That sounds communist for the average troll, but you should keep in mind some basic things.
In the French vision, the government is made by the people, for the people, and takes its decision in the better interest of the people.
When a government fails, it is disposed, violently if needs be (everyone have heard, at least, of the French Revolution ?). We're actually in our 5th republic, and the topic of a 6th one comes regularly.
But, in the French vision of how things are, a private corporation is made by people who don't give a fuck about other people, wildlife, public health, employment rate, or anything; except the money they earn.
Because earning money is the definition and meaning of life of a private corporation, not ethics, civil rights, or any other things like that.
People in the US is suspicious of big government databases. People in France is suspicious about big corporate databases. And, actually, I havn't heard of things like the CNIL (Commission Nationale Informatique et Liberté) who watch and prevents privacy abuses from government and pricate organizations alike.
Reading Slashdot, I often get the feeling that people from the US sees governments as a necessary evil, trying to oppress and spy upon the citizens, whereas pricate corporations are utopian-minded selfless organizations promoting freedom, civil rights, respect for life, human rights, and environment.
Although it would be naive to say I believe in the reverse, I sure trust less corporations than government. At least, the government is legitimized in its position by the constitution, and has clear duties it needs to respect.
sigmentation fault
As the headline says:
I've read all you Slashdotters responses to this. A lot of you seem to think that the US government is less online because of the size of the country. Sounds like an excuse to me.
I have an idea. It's just a little thought. Please don't mod me down as a troll. Here goes... Perhaps, just maybe, the UK and French governments are more on-line than the US government because, (deep breath), they are better organised than the US government. There, I've said it. I'm probably going to burn in hell now.
I think Americans often confuse their country's size with superiority. Yes, America is very big, but let's imagine for a moment that it was much smaller, say a fifth of the size, with a population of say, 50 million. Do you think it would be that 'superior' globally if that were the case? Would it have the most Nobel prize winners? (that would be the UK I think) Would it have the highest earning potential per capita? (That would be Switzerland) Would it have the freest citizens? (Probably Denmark). Would it have the highest standard of living? (Norway, according to the UN). Sorry, but I think the answers to these questions are no, no, no and no. America is a very big country, yep. But don't confuse that with an innate superiority.
> ... and well paid.
£35247 - £50801 is not well paid for an IT Professional in central London, where a decent flat costs £150,000-£250,000. This is about right for 2+ years post grad experience, it's low for a deptartmental head.
- They were **THE** pionneers in instituting an online society.
- They're not anglo-saxons.
- De Gaulle did not like using a phone.
- They're catholics
- French culture values intellectual achievement
- The education system does not make specialists, but generalists.
- France values education and culture.
French is not only about perfumes and good food, it's also about technology, science, research and, most importantly, FREE EDUCATION.More than 20 years ago, they decided to implement the fabled Minitel in order to eliminate paper telephone directories.
So the french don't have that innate distrust of the State. Thus, they not only do not continually question what the State does, but they don't view working for the State as something demeaning, so the best minds are naturally attracted to work for the State so everyone benefits.
He himself took maybe three phone calls a year, and made perhaps only one (on a good year) phone call on the same year (he didn't have a phone on his desk). Therefore, telephone infrastructure lagged sorely behind most countries (and was the butt of cruel jokes, like Fernand Raynaud's fabled: "Hello New-York, gimme the 22 at Asnières", which is said to have humiliated french telephone network engineers more than anything else. So, upon De Gaulle's resignation, the authorities embarked into a record-breaking research program to enhance the french phone network.
The retarded phone network was a blessing in disguise, because in most cases, switches simply bypassed mechanical switching and they went from manual operators straight to digital packet-switching.
This gave France a head-start in digital communications, which enabled them to quickly implement the Minitel network.
The french didn't have much choice but either to listen to the priests or to dump them, which is what they've been doing en masse for the last 200 years or so. (By contrast, a protestant can either find a sect that tells him what he likes, or simply make-up one of his own)
Republican ideals naturally spurns religion as something which enslaves humanity, so the State is quite rigorously insulated from the church. Official education is strictly non-religious (law forbids teaching religion in public schools), so therefore, the french put much virtue in Science (and the fabled cartesian spirit also helps). So it is quite normal that the french will rigorously embrace new technology without having any philosophical qualms about it.
And it does so far more than financial success (you just can't get rid of the the old scatholic foundations...), so plenty of people are drawn into scientific studies. Scientists enjoy recognition and are respected. So, naturally, luddites do not really get listened to...
This enables a great penetration of advanced technological ideas throughout society.
French scientists have a shallower knowledge that spans far more areas of interests, so they are more able to connect seemingly disconnected technologies together.
A most successful and innovative american company has fully understood this idea. Researchers working for the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing company are forced NOT to spend 10 to 15% of their research budget on their primary research area. But they are quite free to spend it investigating side-effects discovered through their research. That's why they have so much innovative products.
Since then, it is only natural that education is freely available to anyone. The cream of the crop is also enrolled in the grandes écoles where they are given the best education for free, for which they then serve the State as the fabled highly-competent senior bureaucrates.
The US government led the world in getting on the InterNet. One of Gore's jobs (skip the "he invented the internet" b.s.) was to see that all agencies had an internet presence. And they did. The US is larger seller of goods on the Net mainly through its surplus and bonds sites.
But as web sites must re-invent themselves every other year to stay on the tech forefront, the US effort may have stalled, allowing late-comers like France.gov to take the lead.
In the past year, I:
1. Filed my federal, state, and local taxes
2. Registered my car
3. Paid the bill for my water and trash (city provides these services)
4. Complained about a fallen tree over in the park next to my house.
5. Checked my property tax account balance.
6. My wife applied for college and registered for classes.
I did all of this online. Never spoke to anyone on the telephone or visited an office. I live in Ohio.
I think most people don't realize how much of this stuff is already there or else they are waiting for it to become "free."
The fact is that a national government portal would be helpful only for things that the national government does. I already have a city portal and a state portal and they are quite useful. The private sector fills in the gaps nicely (bill payment)
The government controls the TV station
Actually, the charter of the BBC is such that it is independant of the government - the government cannot influence its output. It is more of a publicly owned body than a state controlled service.
People in the UK (mostly) love the BBC, even those on the right politically. (They complain about it, but then they complian about everying). Even Thatcher was afraid to privatize it because she knew there would be outrage.
I know its too late for anyone to read this but I guess I'll point it out. While all of your say size and complexity of the US government is the issue, I must disagree.
The Fact is that the majority of voters in the US don't care about the government being online. Congress doesn't push for online government because %90 of the voters don't care. Corporations on the other hand with their lobbyists, have pushed the IRS online. If you paid taxes like the corporations do, you would want it to be as efficient as possible so you wouldn't have to pay as many accountants.
Again its not size or complexity, its an issue of who wants it to be done. Remember American Slashdotters, you are a minority if you do everything online. Just because you do it online doesn't mean the rest of America does.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
The DMV in NY is about 1.5 years behind in paper work. I had just got notified in August 2001, of a lapse in my insurance that happened in Dec. 99.
It would be really nice if you could do DMV stuff online but I don't see how they're going to get it done at this pace.
There is a website for all people like you here who hate Frenches, it's called http://www.fuckfrance.com, it's your home baby. But please let me say it once, because really I can't resist anymore when reading all those comments like yours: US Citizen, you sux hard. Vive Concorde, vive Airbus, vive Ariane, vive St Emillion, vive la qualité de la vie.
I thought the general trend in the US Government was to take away information...
We woulden't want those pesky terrorists reading our laws now ...
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
Here is a stort in Irelands Sunday Buisness post which purports to be a reflection of an official EU report on "connected" governments in the EU / EFTA area.
The top 10 are :
1. Ireland
2. Norway
3. Finland
4. Sweden
5. Denmark
6. Spain
7. Britain
8. Portugal
9. France
10. Austria
That's federal(or state or local), it's alittle annoying, but we can do it here(at least federal and some states).
register a child for a state school,
School Boards are run locally, so each has their own, not all that surprising considering the schools are at variable levels of technology
or be reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time'
This is usually done on a state level.
So they cite three different activities and we as a nation handle them on three different governmental structure, we don't have the over arching Federal Govt that gets into local matters.(well within reason) So it's not surprising we don't have the same level here, even with greater population, we split the power up between the government levels.
You can also pay your federal income taxes online and that's really the only time US citizens deal with the federal gov't (at least that's all I've ever done with the federal gov't). Maybe you need to open your eyes and ears a bit before asking why the US gov't isn't "online."
Some of the things mentioned that this French government site can do are either things shared between the state and the feds, or just aren't mentioned in the Constitution and rest solely with the state. For example:
"pay taxes online"
If I recall correctly, you can pretty much do that already with your federal income taxes already through the IRS website, but it isn't the job of the IRS to collect state income taxes, or any other taxes levied by the state. Talk to your comptroller, or at the very least go to the website of your state government. For me, I'd have to find the Louisiana website for information on paying Louisiana income and property taxes.
"register a child for a state school"
Beyond those offered by the military for their dependants and the five federal academies, I don't think there is such a thing as a federal school. Elementary and high schools are usually the responsibility of the local government (county or city), while they only have to answer to state guidelines and standards. If you want to register your kid to attend local schools, talk to the local school board. They're at your county seat, not at Washington D.C.
"reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time"
For commercial vehicles, while there are federal rules and regulations for your vehicle, it is up to the state to enforce them. As for personal vehicles, my title, registration and license plate are from the State of Louisiana, and the brake tag I got from St. Charles Parish. Frankly, I wouldn't want to have to deal with a city almost a thousand miles away for something as simple as my car. And if neither of those two governments provide what you're looking for, the only think you might be justified in complaining to the US Congress about is that they haven't set aside any money for state and local governments to set up such services.
So why can't we interact with the US federal government in the same way? At least 90% of the interactions your average citizen has with the federal government are with either the IRS or the USPS. Both of these organizations have very well-done, informative and useful websites. For anything else I suggest you check with your state website and/or see if your local government maintains a website.
Because each state basically takes care of itself, any attempt to automate basic services would result in MASSIVE duplication of effort. State laws (and governments) are different enough that even an off-the-shelf product for somthing simple (like driver's license and vehicle registration renewal) would require fairly extensive modifications to work in multiple jurisdictions, especially when you consider the need to interface with legacy systems. It gets even more complicated when you look at things like business licenses and public assistance, which are managed at the county/local level.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I am involved now in a project that I think responds directly to the issue raised by the post.
The project is to create a portal to every company that contributed to financing the campaign of a representative.
The portal will centralize all information needed to ascertain that paid representatives are performing their fiduciary duties to the people who invested hard earned money in their campaigns.
The portal will have forms for donation as well as RFLs ( Request for Legislation ). And we are now devising a method to integrate issues of tax relief and lifting regulation. One idea is to have a law that correlates the amount of tax to the ammount of regulation. But this is all still on the drawing board.
The project is financed from a special tax deduction "for streamlining the interaction between business and government".
-- look, cheese ahoy!
http://www.centerdigitalgov.com/
http://www.state.ak.us/
I know exactly why the US system is like it is, and that is exactly the reason that this sort of thing is a problem, this isn't indicative of what is "good" or "bad" but of why somethings can be done in some places but not in others. The US for instance was a natural place for something like the internet as there is more of a culture of autonomous nodes.
Goverments where people were oppressed by distributed goverment : US during slavery, Italy, Germany etc etc etc. Its always possible no matter what the system as long as you convince the majority across the whole country.
The quote is from a US book "To kill a Mockingbird" the US was last successfully invaded IIRC in 1812. The UK in 1066, Iceland god knows when and Spain for about the same period as the US IIRC. The ability of an individual with a gun to stop an army isn't very great. Looks like most of Afghanistan had guns... didn't matter much as they were politically divided.
Social factors are the main governing factor in the success of most projects and operations. The hardware is for large parts of it irrelevant.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Les rosbifs ont évolué sur une petite île très pauvre, sous une monarchie importée (pour la plupart) de France (bref, l'Angleterre est une colonie française qui a mal tourné)
(But I'm going to redo that in english, so more people can understand it)
So,
The americans are the direct offspring of the english, minus the queen.
The english have evolved on a small, poor island, under a monarchy (mostly) imported from France (in brief, England is a french colony that turned bad)... Very soon, when their natural ressources were depleted, they were forced to seek fortune overseas, hence the strong maritime and merchant traditions.
Starting with the Magna Carta of 1215 (where corrupt barons took advantage of a weak king), people gradually got the notion that they were more important than the state.
With the Industrial revolution, the rise of the power of the bourgeois, coupled with the notion that they, somehow, were "better" than the State yielded the then omnipresent sentiment that the State is bad and should be suspected.
It, however, did not apply to the bourgeois, hence the quasi-revered status of rich people, and the lack of suspicion given to overly powerful companies.
Since the fall of Communism, bourgeois arrogance (embodying their belief of their own superiority - after all, they "won" the cold war) has risen significantly, to the point of subverting national governments and suckering them into abdicating their sovereignty to unelected and unaccountable "international" bodies that solely sucker to big croporations.
I dunno what everyone is expecting here... but there has been alot of on-line government resources for a long time now.
Consider: St. Paul.gov where you can view this week's prostitution arrests in the city of St. Paul.
What more do you REALLY want from your government than a good laugh?
Do you not own a watch? Here's the Time? Obviously your government is looking after you, considering your every possible need.
As far as I'm concerned these guys need to waste less money on this crap when there are former-tax-payers starving in the streets right now.
I don't really want people to perceive the government as "easy to use". I'd rather have people see it as it is, a burden. Similarly, I'd rather have income taxes not withheld from each paycheck so that people have to pay the IRS each month and realize where their 20,000 dollars a year goes. Then, perhaps, people will want to reduce their tax burden and save us from an ever expansive state.
Part of the problem is that the US (Federal) Government does not have an all-inclusive internet plan. Not all of the websites look or work the same. They are not laid out the same. They do not all use the same hardware or software. Neither should they be: the SEC has *far* different operating requirements than the CIA, NSA or FBI. Also, as has been mentioned, most of the 'US government' (i.e. all governments, not just federal) is NOT the Federal government, but state and local governments.
The Daily Build
The French are not more online. My girlfriend just went through hell trying to pay her French taxes "online" and the French government did a fine job of "losing" her payment, forcing her to send a paper payment later causing them to label her account as "delinquent".
As a matter of fact, we spent the first part of this year trying to get the right tax forms from the French government. We looked online and they only had forms that were two years old online. The site hadn't been updated since 1999. That doesn't seem more online to me. (Hell, they're barely offline, either -- the local office didn't have the damn forms either.)
In the US, we can go online and get all sorts of information -- including the proper tax forms for the year. Sure, it's not all nicely packaged in one happy Big Brother box, but it's there. Heck, even the INS has its forms online.
So, don't go touting the French thing as some amazing online revolution, because it's sure not to live up to all the promises.
1) US has branded online gamblers as terrorists
2) All dealings with the IRS are a huge gamble
Hence, paying your taxes online would be considered gambling, and we all know how the US doesnt like to contradict itself.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Well heck, the Vatican is probably one of the most wired states in the world -- they have a website.
There's the problem with percentages...
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I got karma to burn, mod me down into oblivion if you want, but you(collectively) are still responsible for what's bad (as well as what's good) so don't start saying "yeah, but others have an easier time" and move your arse.
Alright, then I propose that the reason this hasn't been done is one of the following:
Yeah, I've got karma to burn too.
--Dan
In the US, most of the real action happens on the city, county and state levels. So the problem becomes one of ability and funding. For example, I live in Boise, Idaho, a reasonably tech-savvy oasis in the Intermountain West, and while I think that the local governments would love to have more of an Internet presence than they do, they also have to deal with the fact that there are other projects to fund.
The Internet is cool and a lot of people use it, but on the local level dollars are hard to come by and most local governments are going to look a lot harder at repairing the roads and fixing the school's roof than they are at enabling online payment of property taxes.
The Internet isn't as ubiquitous as many of us think, and until it is, I don't think that we'll see it used with the sort of universality that the telephone or the Postal Service is used.
But I'm sure it'll happen someday...
-h-
here it makes sense, there are zones with more than 10 million people.
The Brazilian population is about half that of the US, which means "same order of magnitude". The amount of bureaucracy is debatable, our income tax is MUCH simpler, but we beat you in several other points.
I have filled my income tax returns on-line in the last four years now. This year I did all the paperwork on renovating my drivers license on-line (www.detran.rj.gov.br, asp and flash, the whole shit!), although I had to go to a flesh-and-bones doctor (randomly chosen by computer) for the examination. We have had nationwide elections using digital ballots since 1998. As a matter of fact, in 1998 I was randomly chosen as an inspector for the presidential elections, so I have a somewhat more deep knowledge than I would like of that system.