Kaleil Tuzman says it was his discovery of a two-year-old unpaid parking ticket while moving house in 1998 that prompted him to start gov-Works. How convenient it would be, thought Mr Tuzman, if he could pay the fine online. The end result of that reflection was a firm which uses the Internet to let people make all kinds of routine payments to local government—not just in one municipality, but potentially across America. The business logic was simple. The United States alone has more than 80,000 local authorities which between them collect around $450 billion a year in fines and fees for things like building permits and business licences. If taxes are included, the figure rises to about $4 trillion.
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