Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Just Bricks In The Wall

Many of you have attempted to file your income tax online. And many of you have failed. For those of you who are about to try, we salute you. Be prepared for a myriad range of problems ranging from denial of service to strange error messages.

Disclaimer: I do not work for IRAS.

Here are the facts:

• The myTax website is butt ugly. It looks like it was designed by a colour blind nurse (they cant draw for nuts). Even a secondary school kid could have done better then this.
• The myTax website is slow. It’s slow in the morning. It’s slow in the afternoon. It’s always so slow.
• The user interface is a mystery. It looks like it was just cobbled together by some programmer who prefers using the dos command prompt. I bet all of you Mac lovers are screaming bloody murder.

Despite all that, I do not blame IRAS and I’ll explain to you why.

Although IRAS collects all of your taxes, it is not (as many of us believe) fabulously rich. Their coffers do not overflow with our tax dollars. IRAS like any other government agency is accountable for each and every bleeding cent they spend. If they want to build an online tax filing system, you can be as sure as hell that the idea did not originate with them. Didn’t they have to retrench their staff last year because the online system was so ‘efficient’?

Consider also that they have to tender out the project to build such a massive system. Tenders means 2 things - fairness and cost efficiency. The firm that bids with the lowest price and the most features will almost always win the tender. Unfortunately you have to compare apples with apples right? So what happens is that wildly optimistic companies (read: naive) will always look better on paper compared to companies with realistic prices and expectations.

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys. It’s a miracle that the online tax filing system though ugly and user-friendly even works in the first place.

Let’s go to the topic of server speed now. Local blogger Vanessa asks why sites like Amazon cope so well with the sudden spike in visitors and IRAS can’t seem to? Of course things like horribly inefficient code (see pragraph above) make a difference. But l also suspect the culture in IRAS is not like Amazon in the least.

Here’s a conversation I suspect may have happened at one point or another

IT Guy: People are complaining the website is slow. We need to get more servers to deal with the traffic
Manager: Can you gurantee me that if I spend x dollars then the problem will go away?

What just happened? Didja see it? The Manager just effectively (1) gave the IT Guy some rope to hang himself with and (2) effectively shifted responsibility to his subordinate (also known as ‘it is his fault, not mine’). Do you think this encourages any sort of innovative culture that rewards people who solve problems? Is it any wonder that the speed is not improving?

Lastly, I am grateful we even have an online tax filing system in the first place. Last weekend I went to Malaysia and drove my gf to the Malaysian version of IRAS where it took 1 hour to change her address and 3 hours to get somebody to help check her form. Compare the 10 mins I spent online filing my income tax and I sound like a whining loser.

Peace.

Actually, I had no problems filing taxes for myself and my bf online.

I am not sure whether you know the itricate details involved in a solution tender (or the local software industry as a whole) but your post suggests otherwise.

I suggest you find out how the IRAS system works first before saying that it is entirely the fault of the software vendor that they have a crappy layout and slow response time.

whoa uncle I’m sure you understand this because you’re in the shoes of the IT Guy before rite?

Strangly enough, I just had the same conversation with my clients and their IT support on monday.

err.. seth, i dont think Caleb is blaming the software vendor… =\

his pointing fingers at the culture

This is my very first comment on this site so I’ll start by saying hi. So there. Hi

Well, I beg to differ. I blame IRAS.

I strongly believe that if IRAS want to build an online tax filing system for the masses, they should jolly well make bloody SURE that it could handle the traffic. Cannot make it, dont build. Simple as that. Having a screwed up system not only reflects badly on our supposedly world class nation, it’ll cause a few individual’s blood pressure to shoot through the ceiling as well.

Maybe you are one of the lucky few to have spent only 10 mins filing your returns. Not me. Believe me, I was so freaking frustrated I nearly tore my head off. I believe you would do the same if you were in my shoes.

I’ve included a link below. Read about it if you have time to kill.

http://jordangoh.blogspot.com/2005/04/e-filing-made-easier-my-ass.html

Cheers.

1) screw up traffic, network and hardware sizing.
2) caleb is right, the culture of not listening to subject matter experts by higher-ups often cause this is many other organizations, not exclusively IRAS.
3) sometimes, as compared to others, we DO want perfection - humans are hard to please, no, make it Singaporeans are so hard to please :P

Actually, the management of a tender plays a very large part in the success/failure of a system. The management process of a government tender is notorious for it’s inability to go beyond the pricing of a system (and into important stuff like Service Level Standards, system requirements, etc).

Also, I’d have fewer problems with IRAS if they would -just- allow paper filing as well. Make the people pay a fee to file by paper if you have to - but if you’re -only- going to allow filing by techie methods, you have an obligation to make sure your techie methods work!

I file by paper. Always have. Conversation with the SO as follows.

SO: Why dun you e-file / e-bank / e-whatever?

Me: I dun trust computers.

SO: Yeah, right. What do you mean you dun trust computers. You work with computers.

Me: Yup. And that is *exactly* why I dun trust computers.

Just like on a related note, I am not going to trust LASIK as long as I see a LASIK doctor/nurse/technician wearing glasses or using contacts..

Since there are only 2 involved parties, IRAS and the vendor, and he mentioned that IRAS was not to blame…..

Let me give some background info on how the IRAS system works. The service is built on top of a platform designed in the late 90s by a quasi-government company. The system is obfuscated and the support is horrible. Subsequent software vendors are forced to work with this almost legacy platform and make their work compatible with it.

I don’t know who implemented the IRAS system but I am pretty sure it is not their fault that the underlying system is horrendously slow. It is not even a matter of hardware inadequacy because regardless of how many application/web servers you have at the top tier, if the bottom tier lacks the capability to process the requests, the system will still be slow.

Why do I know it? Because I happen to be working on a project that uses the same platform.

[…] hould be exercised with care lest you paint a wrong picture of how things work. A perfect example is the recent complaints about the IRA […]