A citizen service center at a shopping mall in Bahia, Brazil

To tax and please

Brazil's states want to make taxes less irritating–and more enforceable

There is something odd about this tax collector's office. First, it's in the middle of a shopping mall–just steps away from record shops, ice-cream parlors and other places where people willingly part with their money. Second, it's open till 10 p.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. on Saturdays. Third, it is nicely furnished, air-conditioned and staffed with smiling clerks who sit behind late-model computers...

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