Getting to know the time tax

The time tax refers to the many hours that people spend doing paperwork or other tasks just to receive government services and supports. At its worst, the time tax can be regressive, wasteful, and ineffective. Despite this, the time tax often flies under the radar. We think it deserves more attention. This is the second article in our series on the time tax, the harms it causes, and how it might be fixed.

The “time tax” refers to the costs people experience in their interactions with the government. This includes the paperwork, effort and frustration a resident faces in order to access government programs and services intended for them. To understand the effects of the time tax on people’s lives and begin to identify solutions, it helps to have a common understanding of what we are talking about.

The time tax goes by a variety of names — sometimes “red tape”, “sludge” or “administrative burdens”. Whatever you call it, it wastes people’s time. It’s a result of the frictions and demands placed on people who need support, and it’s the reason many citizens don’t end up with what they need.

The time tax appears everywhere, when you start to pay attention. It stands in between a student and the financial aid and loans meant to help them access education; between a senior and the income support meant to help them make ends meet; and between a newcomer and their citizenship status. The time tax interferes with Canadians trying to get a job, seek aid to feed their families, or manage a disability. It’s intimidating, frustrating, and it prevents people from reaching their full potential.

Some of the leading experts on the costs of time taxes point to three kinds of costs that get between people and the public services they rely on:

• Complexity costs: The time and effort to navigate the maze of government to figure out what services are available and how to access them.
• Compliance costs: The paperwork and proof required to sign-up, renew or otherwise access a service, including getting supporting documentation in place.
• Community costs: The stigma of relying on social safety net services that discourages people from using them because of the cost to their standing in the community.

Each of these can play a role. Take the example of financial aid for students to access post-secondary education.

• Complexity costs can make it hard to understand what type of support is available in what circumstances — and certainly there is evidence that in the United States, many high-achieving students with low incomes do not apply to selective universities because admissions staff fail to clearly outline financial aid available to them — the options are hidden.
• Where students are aware, they may stumble at the point of proving family income or the state of their family relationships.
• Or they might forgo the opportunity because programs are framed in a way that discourages them from taking up the aid as something for “other people.”

Any of these hurdles could restrict the financial aid programs from doing the job they are designed for — lowering the financial barriers for those students to access post-secondary education.

Time taxes are political

In some cases, government systems are designed to be difficult to access. We expect governments to be accountable for the money they collect and spend on our behalf, and that can mean adding hurdles to make sure that programs are not serving people that they weren’t intended for, for example. The political pressures here are particularly lopsided — one ineligible person getting a public benefit is much more likely to make the news than 10,000 eligible people missing out.

Administrative burdens can also be used as less obvious forms of policymaking. A government can make a benefit or service more challenging to access as a means to quietly achieve their political agenda without being noticed. In a similar vein, if a government wants to ration services to cut costs, it can do so by building a bureaucratic obstacle course with various challenges that cause people to be arbitrarily disqualified or just to give up.

Ultimately, burden is at least to some degree subjective, and often seen through someone’s broader political framework. A person’s policy preferences will impact their attitude about whether administrative requirements should be created or reduced, and how much administrative burden should be the responsibility of an individual instead of the government itself.

Time taxes are operational

Sometimes, red tape arises when policymakers are more focused on making a program or service exist and less focused on making that program or service work well. In this case, the administrative burden is less intentional and more of a by-product of a lack of emphasis on implementation and usability.

As the UK government’s Government Design Principles remind us, it’s hard work to make things simple to use. And that work is not often prioritized in the hurry to meet a political commitment or in the compromises as a policy makes its way to and through cabinet or city council. A growing group of public service professionals have been bringing user-centred design to more places in government especially through dedicated digital service teams like the Ontario Digital Service and the Canada Digital Service. But this level of attention to user experience in public service is still the exception rather than the rule.

One factor that adds complexity in Canada is the way that public services are delivered. The mixed roles of federal, provincial, local and Indigenous governments make it much more challenging for residents to understand where to look for programs that might be relevant to their situation. For example, in student financial assistance — where there is evidence that time tax is a barrier to access — student loans and grants are funded by federal and provincially governments administered provincially with support from universities and colleges, and repayment is through the federal National Student Loan Service Centre. At least some prospective students are sure to get lost in that maze.

Making things even fuzzier is the fact that governments increasingly rely on non-profit or private sector third parties to deliver the actual services. It is still possible to design services with users in mind, even when multiple governments and partners are involved in service delivery. However, it requires intentional planning at the policy development stage and focus during the implementation phase. It makes it a bit harder to make things simple.

Whether political or operational considerations are behind it, the results are the same: benefits and programs do not benefit people that need them because they are too confusing, time consuming, or difficult to access. The next instalment in our series looks more closely at the costs of administrative burdens.

Some further introductory reading

• A journalistic view: Annie Lowrey’s coverage of the time tax highlights its impact on U.S. citizens and looks at possible approaches to address the burdens.
• An academic view: Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan’s academic work describes the consequences and politics of administrative burdens in public administration and public policy.
• A practitioner view: Jennifer Pahlka is the founder of Code for America and former Deputy CTO in the Obama White House. Her book Recoding America shines a light on how rigid systems lead to public services that are hard to access.
• A practitioner/academic view: Cass Sunstein is an academic and former head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He describes administrative burdens as “sludge”: frictions that prevent people from accessing opportunities and benefits they’re entitled to.

By Jasmine Lee