I'm pretty sure payroll taxes are things taxed at the source: I'm not sure there is a less painful way to tax for, say, social security or military spending. I'd honestly be happy changing some things into payroll taxes, honestly: Gasoline taxes, for example, aren't going to fund roads as much in the future (and efficient cars are already causing issues). Folks that work use roads in most cases, though, even if they use public transportation.

We (Americans) still, in general, don't need to file taxes like we do, though. The US has tons of paperwork: Norway sends me an electronic document to look over and unless I want to file, I owe money, or something is wrong, I don't have to do anything. They will automatically pay out refunds. Sure, I still "file taxes", but realistically, I just look over some electronic paperwork.

This method of "filing taxes" makes it easy to comply with filing and I'm guessing it makes collection rates better with less work.

In the UK if you are an employee of one company you get PAYE (Pay as You Earn) which is dealt with by your employer.

I'm 40 and have never had to do a tax return, I get a summary at the end of the year and a breakdown on each pay slip and that's pretty much it.

It's one of those silent services that government does so well it pretty much disappears into the background.

Maybe this is already clear, but in the US "tax witholding" done by your employer is mandatory for most people. So all the paperwork we do at filing time is just to compute the difference between what was withheld and what you owe.

In the UK that's normally also done for you.

Only in exceptional circumstances does a normal waged employee have to have anything to do with taxes.

Until I was self-employed in my 30s I never filled out a tax form. Some people never do.

You're being swindled in the US.

I don't envy it at all either - but it's also because theirs is so much more complicated that even if you consider it broadly the same principle, far more Americans fall into the needing to self-assess (as we call it) category since, for example, they have 'a whole bunch of deductibles'.

IIRC, the vast majority of americans use 1040 and 1040EZ. Both of these can be automated.

Norway just asks upfront. Yes, I have to try to predict what I'm going to make that year, but yes, I can update it if I change jobs. Marriage, children, etc all gets factored in. If I don't change things, I think it stays the same. The vast majority of folks don't have to self-assess like Americans do, and thinking that we need to do it more seems to be more leaning towards an attitude of Exceptionalism - which seems to be just as much an excuse as it is something folks have pride in.

> You're being swindled in the US.

We're being swindled in the US by a lot of things. Tax prep as you mentioned, but also health care guaranteed sick pay, fair minimum wages, etc...

But half the country is actually in favor of maintaining all this.

> This method of "filing taxes" makes it easy to comply with filing and I'm guessing it makes collection rates better with less work.

This is by design, in the US the anti-tax crowd wants filing taxes to be harder and more inefficient. It serves their purposes. And they are a powerful lobbying group.

While the anti-tax folks sometimes want this, I'm pretty sure most of the actual lobbying that keeps it difficult is done by the tax software companies - Intuit, for example.

Not including sales tax actually demonstrates more clearly the result of anti-tax sentiment, though I'm still not convinced it is lobbying itself that does this. Instead, the same sort of folks go into politics and directly get involved in making laws about this sort of thing. Of course, this is built on a long-standing anti-tax sentiment in the US that folks tie into an "origin story" of sorts (taxation from England minimally helped spur the revolution).

And they do have a point: The more of a pain a tax is for the taxpaper, the more they think about disliking taxes. But it doesn't realistically go that far: We do all sorts of things to make paying taxes easier for folks. Gasoline prices include all taxes (from federal down to sales tax). Payroll taxes are deducted from your paycheck. Stores collect sales tax instead of you sending it to the government. Prepaid phone plans still have taxes included and renters don't pay for property tax directly.And so on.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. In 2005, Grover Norquist had this to say:

> Doing taxes keeps citizens aware of the tax burden imposed upon them by the government.

https://theweek.com/articles/825902/how-republicans-trapped-...

So does your paycheck stub, though (or more currently, the paper you get each time you are paid).

Given how much our system taxes based on brackets and deductions, etc that are only apparent at the end of a year, that is probably not possible for the bulk of tax revenue. Also, people have many, many different thoughts on VAT, etc.

Erm, loads of countries don't require employees to file taxes. Your employer takes care of it for you.

If you have an unusual tax situation you have to do it still, but 99% of people just have 1 job with 1 salary.

A lot of people have stocks, mortgage deductions, credits, etc. that cannot be computed by your employer and filed automatically.