Well I think here people are just generally tax complaint. If you don't pay a bill, say cable, after two or so weeks they send you the bill again but now it's got an extra 10 Euro on it. If you don't pay your phone or ESB on time it will be cut off, they don't bother with warning letters, so everybody pays those by direct debit, as you could easily forget if you go on holidays. Bureaucracy is horrendous, far worse than Ireland. So I guess people don't want to deal with the hassle as it will only cost you if you don't comply.
Also we can see where the money goes. The services are excellent. They are forever doing up the roads, making the neighbourhoods better. Very envirnomentally friendly. I mentioned a story about how fast they dealt with a water leak, on a bank holiday on here. A sibling in Ireland told me last weekend they cut off the water for the full weekend, lied about putting it back on for a few hours on Saturday, which they didn't. No idea why it was cut off, they said a leak, my sibling thinks they did it on purpose to get overtime. It was still not on at lunchtime Monday. That just wouldn't happen here unless we were informed etc. A bit of snow does cause problems but it's sorted out rapid. As far as I can tell they don't run out of salt, they plan in advance etc.
There is a black economy but they've put steps in place against it. I won't go fully into it, but let's take the business that are cash in Ireland that are notorious. Here I don't believe restaurants can hide how much they are earning, ditto for home help, if you call a tradesman he will give you a 5 page quotation, you have to sign a contract and he will give you a proper numbered receipt. There are ways around this with for example Polish (etc) but they are wary of being caught, so will not do outside work like painting. My understanding is that they are afraid of being reported. So maybe they have an ethos of reporting. They're is a civic pride. For examply my mother 5 times tried to plant a creeper on her outside wall and had to give up as it was just vandalised each time. People can put out hanging baskets and pot plants directly on the footpath and nobody will steal or vandalise them. Not sure about the inner cities, there are of course bad areas.
Gavin the gardner did up a few towns in Ireland, putting in trees in towns, but they had to be quickly protected by metal, outside my door last year they planted about 50 trees on the street, no protection and no one will damage them. There is good and bad in every country.
You'll be interested in this Oldnick, this is the place to be a landlord, tenant's are responsible for basically everything, gardening, keeping hedges to level of what it was when you rented, 3 month deposit, no such thing as wear and tear really. You have to paint the place when you leave and it has to be spotless, and I mean spotless, you cannot ring up the landlord to change a lightbulb (I'm sure you've had those tenants), or service the boiler or fix the toilet. Only thing landlord seems liable for is the structure. It makes for a very stable housing environment. Also furnished is very unusual.