Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?
One of the reasons is also general distrust to the government. Another one is that there exist special interest group which profits from the complicated scheme, keep adding special cases, and has stronger financial situation that the opponents of such complex scheme. People do not trust government, or companies, to act in their best interests. So they (we) waste huge amount of time and/or money to comply with byzantine income laws. In 2004 Democratic presidential primary, presidential candidate Wes Clark (who beyond being 4-star general has also master degree in economics from Oxford, and taught economics in West point) proposed similar scheme: for people with income under 50K, employer would do all the (simple) paperwork, if desired, and get return.  In the noise of the campaign, idea how to simplify taxes for half of the population was lost.  Funny how the only candidate in recent history who was both professor of economics (not MBA, which is about business and profits) and distinguished military hero, could not get any traction in Democratic party.