Inside the Nudge Unit

the head of a tax office in a mediumsized country will have 50–100,000 staff, and be responsible for collecting hundreds of billions of pounds in revenue that every other department will rely on. To those who have spent years oiling and tuning it, what to you look like a ‘few’ ingenious changes will to them look like a dangerous risk of throwing grit into the cogs of their great machine. They know perfectly well that if the changes you make lead to things going wrong, tax collection not happening, or mistakes being made, support from your political masters will evaporate. And chances are they’ll have to pick up the pieces.