We’re number one!
At least when it comes to red tape, we surely are the greatest little country in this planet!
Our government however is trying to cut on red tape, so they say.
Their marketing advisors came up with a name for the project: Simplex.
The great simplification of all the bureaucracy that afflicts us.
Let me give you one of the first practical examples of this miraculous simplification:
Before Simplex:
Every motorized vehicle had to pay a municipal tax, that tax was paid in plenty of shops in every town, where the vehicle owner would fill in a little form (in duplicate), pay the amount due and receive a little voucher to place on the windshield, keeping the duplicate of the form as proof of payment. Far too complex, as you surely agree.
After Simplex:
Every motorized vehicle must pay a municipal tax (simplifying doesn’t mean less taxes).
The vehicle owner must access the taxing service via internet, fill in an e-form, submit it, print the confirmation of the submission, take that confirmation to an ATM, pay the amount due (or do so by home banking), then someone, somewhere will verify everything and send the voucher via snail mail to the address where the vehicle is registered so the owner of the vehicle can place the said voucher in the windshield.
A lot easier.
If you are going to ask if everybody has access to the internet, if everybody who owns a car owns also a computer or any such question, the answer is no. Some people, mostly older people will have to ask for help from someone who does have internet access, making it even easier.
What? This doesn’t make any sense to you? Well, neither to me. Welcome to Portugal!
Tags:Portugal
Our government however is trying to cut on red tape, so they say.
Their marketing advisors came up with a name for the project: Simplex.
The great simplification of all the bureaucracy that afflicts us.
Let me give you one of the first practical examples of this miraculous simplification:
Before Simplex:
Every motorized vehicle had to pay a municipal tax, that tax was paid in plenty of shops in every town, where the vehicle owner would fill in a little form (in duplicate), pay the amount due and receive a little voucher to place on the windshield, keeping the duplicate of the form as proof of payment. Far too complex, as you surely agree.
After Simplex:
Every motorized vehicle must pay a municipal tax (simplifying doesn’t mean less taxes).
The vehicle owner must access the taxing service via internet, fill in an e-form, submit it, print the confirmation of the submission, take that confirmation to an ATM, pay the amount due (or do so by home banking), then someone, somewhere will verify everything and send the voucher via snail mail to the address where the vehicle is registered so the owner of the vehicle can place the said voucher in the windshield.
A lot easier.
If you are going to ask if everybody has access to the internet, if everybody who owns a car owns also a computer or any such question, the answer is no. Some people, mostly older people will have to ask for help from someone who does have internet access, making it even easier.
What? This doesn’t make any sense to you? Well, neither to me. Welcome to Portugal!
Tags:Portugal
posted by DCveR at 5:54 PM
9 Comments:
DC, it is very irritating but, like or lump it, the truth is that everything is heading that way!
Perhaps *everything* is heading that way, but Simplex seems more like a money-saving scheme than a procedure designed to streamline the considerable inconvenience factor of paying your vehicle's municipal tax. Most likely, by forcing citizens to use the internet instead of these littel shops, the gov't is saving the $$$ they used to have to pay to the little shops to provide this little service. They probably have one, little, old, two-finger-typing, coke-bottle lensed man housed in some air-less, window-less cinder block room atop a cushion-less stool hunching over millions of municipal registrants trying to reconcile it with a 1200-page alphabetized listing of citizens. That's gov't for ya.
Oh, and have fun with that! :-P
Red is a lovely colour, it is vivacious, vibrant, bright :-D
Oh man, that pre-Simplex thing sounds so complicated, no wonder they needed to update, get it done via internet and so on.
Aaah, I don't feel too bad, Dcver, it makes me realise we [1]are not alone here, strangle in red tape [2] we don't have as much as some folks.
portugal rocks! -haha well as much as anyother country i guess- i think we can really learn something-- if you look at this whole tax thing, it is possible to see how ALIKE we all are! waw... we are brothers and sisters... waaaawww i think we can be on the way to world peace or something!
we are all the same- our tax systems prove it
That's insane!
cream: Even if I'm stuck with it, there's no way you'll get me to like it!
bunny jo: Nope, the "weird" part is that the new method is more expensive. Of course it will finally allow the government to get an acurate relation between the cars and their owners real addresses, thus making it easier to check for taxes, traffic fines, etc...
Big bro is tuning the gears.
GG: Yeah, misery loves company, right?
TGOV: We sometimes call it "burrocracia" instead of "burocracia". Guess you know enough Spanish to pick the meaning of these Portuguese words... (burro means donkey, in case you need a hint) ;)
ale: Else it shows that all our governments are screwing us alike, heh?
bent: Insane as it may be it is not surprising and that is the sadest part!
Almost no comments: the insane part of all this is that this kind of news is actually NORMAL...
BB
I thought that we have a lot of beaurocracy ;) You surely are leaders in that matter :) This procedure just kicks ass :)
Yes, misery lurrrves company :-D
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