Taxes would be a whole of a lot better if they didn't let you pick all the products and then during payment add the % of tax on top of it! Just include it in the price!
As much as the mental overhead of expecting a sales tax on checkout annoys me, I'll suffer through it so that everyone has a constant reminder that the government is taking its cut.
Knowing what the take is for what you buy in person is such a tiny portion of the bigger picture. And with the county/state/federal variations how closely do you keep track of who is ripping you off and who is using the money well?
A friend of mine has a print of a painting showing soldiers around a large container holding goods and money that citizens were being forced to pay in tribute. The central figure in the painting is a man--I think his family is with him. I don't remember whether the painter shows him actually putting something in the container or not, but he's looking daggers at those guarding the tribute and enforcing its collection. That look reflects how people should think of paying taxes, and things like VAT and tax withholding that lull the host into not realizing just how much he or she is being taken for need to go away.
That's part of it, but you also need to consider whether these are things the taxpayers would have chosen to purchase on their own, at that price. If that were true, however, then there would be no point in making it mandatory; people would purchase these things on their own. Ergo, taxes, if they have any point at all, must only exist to purchase things taxpayers would not choose on their own, at least not at the prices they are forced to pay.
Depriving others of their property is "criminal behavior" even if the thief provides something the thief considers valuable in return. The key point is not whether you received something in exchange, but rather whether you gave your consent.
Apparently the anti-tax element of the Republicans are responsible for taxes in the US being much harder to file than in other countries, because they follow your principle that paying taxes should also inconvenience people in an attempt to make them angry about the whole thing.
Presumably they're not supposed to find out who was responsible for making them angry and wasting their time with pointless busywork.
https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...
Taxes are never about what YOU want to pay; no one is stopping you from "buying civilization" with your own money, if that is what you want. Rather, taxes are all about what you can make OTHER people pay for your "civilization".
All the things that taxes pay for can be purchased by private individuals and organizations working together of their own free will, and not because they are forced to do so. That is true civilization: civilized people cooperating to build a society where civilized, voluntary interaction, not force, is the norm.
Human beings purchasing things from each other with no legal system? With no property rights? Is this system global, and if not then how do you interact with other nations with their own systems. None of this can exist without someone with a big stick to keep people in line.