The old code's very incomprehensibility and Draconian levels (taxes exceed the national income) played into the hands of local mafias that would demand protection money to keep tax collectors at bay.
Meanwhile, three-year-old Code For America, a nonprofit that recruits experienced coders nationally for projects like building databases for local governments, has expanded its annual fellowship program from three to nine projects and last year launched a broad "brigade" of volunteer techies to work on ad hoc civic programs.