Most countries use some sort of PAYE system, so the average person will need to do little or nothing on tax.

Yes, and this includes the US!

When people say they are “paying their taxes”, really what they’re doing is checking whether the automatic tax deduction out of each paycheck was properly calculated over the whole year, and whether any special circumstances make them eligible for a refund (or whether they’ve had other income they need to pay tax on).

Every country I've ever lived in you had to prep and submit your own taxes. Never heard of that system.

If you happen to be an entrepreneur, a foreigner (relative to the country of work), or an American citizen (despite holding the citizenship you're on, thanks FATCA!), then, yeah, I can see why you have never encountered the simpler arrangements.

If you're an ordinary citizen of most countries and work under a company, the company is obliged to track it for you. What you get is a very simplified form asking if you have more income sources than from your work, and the local tax system means that most of them legally do not have any (for example, banks collect the taxes for the interest you have received, not the arcane American system where you're the one responsible for that).

> a foreigner (relative to the country of work)

In a PAYE system, merely being a foreigner isn't _usually_ an issue, provided that you're domiciled and don't have foreign income. The exception, as you mention, would be a US citizen; the US's approach to foreign income of its citizens is sufficiently weird that they'll generally have annoying tax situations.

> What you get is a very simplified form asking if you have more income sources than from your work, and the local tax system means that most of them legally do not have any

If even that. In Ireland, and I believe the UK, you only have to fill out that form if you actually _do_ have non-employment income which is not deducted at source. Most peoples' only interaction with Irish Revenue would be to claim tax credits on rent/mortgage/medical expenditure/whatever.

>If you're an ordinary citizen of most countries and work under a company, the company is obliged to track it for you.

So a W-2?

>for example, banks collect the taxes for the interest you have received, not the arcane American system where you're the one responsible for that).

So a 1099?

I gotta be honest it sounds like you don't really understand the American tax system very well.

In my country, all my tax is deducted from my salary before reaching to me.

For other things, I can go to a "Virtual Tax Office" with my browser or my mobile banking application and pay with cash or credit card, sometimes with zero interest installments, even.

This is exactly how it works in the US, too.

The reason this topic continually comes up is that people in the US are stupid and bad at math, and the IRS is very heavy-handed and issues penalties for minor tax errors, so people are afraid to interact with the process without a trusted intermediary.

Literally none of this is true.

The irs is neither heavy handed nor particularly quick to issue penalties.

There is an extremely effective and powerful alliance between certain republican politicians and tax industry corporations that work to convince people taxes are hard and the gov can't do them and they need an agent.

It works.

Okay, the official IRS policy is that you don't have to file taxes if you don't owe anything. What happens if you do not file your taxes, but the IRS believes you owe them money?

I mean, it depends if the amount is $10billion or $10, but generally they start by sending you a letter at wherever they think you live saying "hello, please write us a check for $x, thanks".

Then they do that... again. At some point they probably put your name on some kind of list of Bad Taxpayers but unless we're talking millions here they probably aren't sending agents after you in specific.

I mean, I don't file anything. For my car tax, I go to the site, enter my license plate, and a couple of other details, and the number shows up.

I enter my credit card number, and pay. That's all.

Same for other stuff like housing tax, too.

That's how it works in the US also, though personal property and real estate taxes are collected at the state and local level (if they exist, which is dependent on the state and local government).

For most people in the US, filing their taxes is a very simple process, which is why it's so annoying that Intuit has successfully lobbied to integrate themselves into the process.