

Agreed. I spend time on it and am inefficient but it’s overall worth while taking into account the benefits. There are many critical or difficult things I wouldn’t automate myself but my goal is to reduce my requirements down to substitutable services where my counterparty doesn’t have a monopoly over me.
I’m a freelancer, and make my own documentation supported by invoices/receipts etc. As an employee, yeah, it doesn’t make sense to self-report when the government already has the information it needs. A lot of countries use withholding so only send a statement of what you’ve paid and somewhere to complain when it’s wrong, like you suggest.
I think some change is coming wrt technology. There seems to be more interest again in open source.

It’s still likely less hassle than amortising capital expenses for something that will likely be written off well before end of life and then needing to dispose of it. As a consumer of fire sale disposed laptops, renting shouldn’t be allowed.