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Can Computers Be Used To Optimize the US Tax Code?

Posted by Soulskill on from the improvement-through-iteration dept.

FatLittleMonkey writes "Science fiction author David Brin wonders whether the US tax code, described by President Obama as a '10,000-page monstrosity,' could be dramatically simplified. His idea is about using computers to shuffle the existing system: 'I know a simple way the sheer bulk of the tax code could be trimmed by perhaps 70% or more, without much political pain or obstructionism! ... it should be easy to create a program that will take the tax code and experiment with zeroing-out dozens, hundreds of provisions while sliding others upward and then showing how these simplifications would affect, say, one-hundred representative types of taxpayers... Let the program find the simplest version of a refined tax code that leaves all 100 taxpayer clades unhurt. If one group loses a favorite tax dodge, the system would seek a rebalancing of others to compensate. No mere human being could accomplish this, but I have been assured that a computer could do this in a snap.' With all the talk about Open Government, perhaps the computer code currently used in tax modelling could be released to the wider community, leading eventually to a Folding@Home type project."

5 of 730 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Would work at face value by clickety6 · · Score: 4, Funny

    In fact, the more popular the item is, the more cash you'd get if you raise the taxes on it.

    Tomorrow's Headline: Computer Suggests Tax on Sex

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  2. Re:Would work at face value by Haedrian · · Score: 4, Funny

    In fact, the more popular the item is, the more cash you'd get if you raise the taxes on it.

    Tomorrow's Headline: Computer Suggests Tax on Sex

    Slashdot crowd mostly unaffected.

  3. Re:Short Answer by flyneye · · Score: 5, Funny

    rm tax code | /dev/null

    Computers CAN fix the tax code.

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  4. Re:Short Answer by ambrosen · · Score: 5, Funny

    I take it you know more about economics than you do about the command line, right?

  5. Re:Better solution by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh come on, don't you like spending a springtime evening every year telling a computer that you aren't collecting a railroad pension, and that you weren't paid to not grow corn?

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