[CorvusCrypto]

> Americans on the whole don't trust their government quite a lot. If the government just said "you owe X in tax this year", nearly everyone's knee jerk reaction would be that the government is overestimating and cheating them.

That's why most governments that do self-declaration services make it so you can review what tax rules they based amounts off of. It's not like tax law is super easy elsewhere and without complications. I should never have to pay a fee just to declare taxes to reconcile things for the IRS. That is a basic governmental responsibility to give me that service for free.

[icebraining]

> That's why most governments that do self-declaration services make it so you can review what tax rules they based amounts off of.

Right, but since no regular person understands the rules, they can't really double-check. Especially since sometimes you can file stuff under different rules that produce different results, despite both being valid (I say this based on experience from another country, but I suspect the same is true in the US).

[catalogia]

> "sometimes you can file stuff under different rules that produce different results, despite both being valid (I say this based on experience from another country, but I suspect the same is true in the US)."

Yes, such circumstances exist in the US too. For instance married couples usually file jointly, but they could chose to file separately which results in a different effect.