If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire—Code for Canada? Launched in 2017, this nonprofit works alongside government to build better services. We sit down with CEO Dorothy Eng to understand the structural and cultural challenges that stop government from delivering. Despite antiquated systems, "that's not how we do it" attitudes, and the challenges of hiring and retaining talent, Dorothy still believes that we can have nice things. All it takes is political will, an understanding of technology, and senior managers who take the risk of doing things differently.

After learning about Canada's attempts to modernize the tax system, it was time to see how the rest of the world does it. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Fabrizio Santoro, an expert on taxation who helps countries around the world design and implement taxation. We dive into a number of countries' systems, including Uganda's complete overhaul of registration, data collection, and filing. The conclusion? Nobody would do it the way Canada does.

You can learn more about Fabrizio’s work at: https://www.ids.ac.uk/

There's no government service that touches every citizen the way taxes do. Every April, millions of Canadians lose a weekend preparing their taxes, often with the help of paid software tools. Yet elsewhere in the world, there's no tax season—or you simply approve the pre-filled return the government sends you.

There are plenty of reasons why it is this way. Taxes are the easiest way for the government to turn policy into outcomes through credits and fees. The tax code is complex, and confederation means citizens file taxes with the province and the nation. And for many independent-minded Canadians, telling the government what you earn, rather than having it tell you, is a rebuke of tyranny. But the current tax system is also broken. It's not just expensive and time-consuming: The CBC estimates that because of a difficult filing system, between $1.3 and $1.6B of the most vulnerable Canadians don't claim the benefits to which they're entitled. And it's the one part of government where, if you're accused of breaking the law, you're presumed guilty and must pay to defend yourself.

The Federal government has tried to fix this on multiple occasions. It's even built free-to-file software tools. But none of them has seen the light of day. Since taxation is such a broad, ubiquitous topic, it's going to take more than one episode to understand the issues, so we started by inviting Alexandra MacEachern and Paul Craig to discuss their work trying to tackle these problems from within government.