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Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?
Why is the US still working with paper checks when Europe went digital about a decade ago? Tax filing is just another area in which the US is lagging. Modernizing it costs money, and the US is quite close to bankruptcy (as seen by the repeated government shutdowns).  Also, the US tax code is quite complicated. For instance, I doubt there's anyone who has a full and complete list of all allowed deductions.  Some comments wonder about multiple incomes. This doesn't require tax filing either. My local tax authority just sends me a combined statement with data from 2 employers and 2 banks, and asks me to confirm the resulting payment. This is possible because tax number usage is strictly regulated. SSN abuse in the US presumably makes this problematic.