This tax season, millions of Americans struggled through the official IRS instructions to file their 1998 federal (and state) income taxes. An estimated 20 million other Americans popped a disk into a computer and let a tax preparation software package do the heavy lifting. Most of the growing array of tax software programs available in stores or on the Internet conduct an interview with the taxpayer and prepare (and even electronically file) the return, based on tax laws and IRS regulations and other guidance. From the point of view of many taxpayers, they produce today what politicians promise in the future: tax simplification.

There are many sound arguments for real, as opposed to virtual, tax simplification, but the explosion of tax preparation software shows how interactive technology can make even the most obscure and terrifying government programs and policies intelligible to anyone who can find a disk drive with both hands. Several years ago the IRS made it possible to download forms, instructions, and other materials from its web page. This year it improved the system for electronic filing. There's no reason in the world why the IRS could not begin making its own or privately produced tax preparation programs available to the public in the immediate future. If you can stroll down to the post office or leap onto the web to get your 1998 forms now, why not pick up a disk or download a preparation questionnaire for 1999?

Tax simplification by software is just one example of the potential for "digital democracy": the use of interactive technology to vastly improve public access to government information and services. Many federal, state, and local agencies are moving rapidly in the direction of posting an array of information on user-friendly web pages, but it is interactivity -- the ability to actually conduct business with your public servants -- that is the key to "digital democracy." At a minimum, citizens should be able if they wish to file forms, pay fees, and request information and services over the web. But we would argue that participating in genuine electronic "town meetings,' and yes, electronic voting, are already technologically feasible and worthy of immediate consideration.

Not everyone, of course, has a PC or Internet access, but all families with cable TV or a telephone may have it built into their lifestyles within a few short years. In the interim, and to fill "gaps" in private usage, governments should rapidly expand electronic access through PCs in public libraries, schools, and other community facilities, and experiment with specialized interactive kiosks providing contact with government agencies in convenient locations.

Some may object that "digital democracy" is best left to the private sector -- to consultants, accountants, lawyers, and webmasters who can supply access to government information and services for a small fee. It's fine with us if the government contracts with private firms to develop software and operate web pages, but publicly authorized access to publicly funded data and services should be a fundamental right in the Information Age. No one has so far objected that Washington, DC, Mayor Anthony Williams' efforts to make District agencies behave like public servants should be suspended lest they interfere with the free market of intrepid entrepreneurs who are making an honest buck holding places in the driver's license line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

"Digital democracy" is to the Information Age what civil service reform was to the Industrial Age: a simple matter of modernizing the public sector to take advantage of new techniques and to meet new challenges. Let's help simplify everyone's taxes by next April 15.