How about this as a way to increase government revenue, reduce crime, raise economic efficiency, and increase civic virtue: make everybody’s tax returns public. If it’s public information that Mr. Smith is reporting only $34,000 in income from his roofing business, but the neighbors know he lives in a $400,000 house, it would be easy for a neighbor to pass along his suspicions to the IRS. Suspicious amounts of business travel expenses by someone who never seems to leave home, returns filed in the names of dead men, sizeable charitable giving by a notorious skinflint, filing of Texas state taxes by someone who lives in California, a red ink year for a thriving small business, sabbatical living deduction by a professor who never left town… the possibilities are endless. We would be crowdsourcing tax compliance, or at least pointing out to the IRS where to focus its energies.
What about privacy?