No bureaucrats are making any decisions in either of your hypothetical scenarios. In one case, there's an unchanging legislative environment incentivizing more work, while in the other case the legislative environment is incentivizing other potentially valuable things. No decisions made.<p>As long as the tax code isn't too complicated and it doesn't change constantly, then how is the government meddling? There are just free people making their own decisions; their decisions just have slightly altered outcomes depending on the environment they're made in.