This is how many of the countries around the world treat it. You can thank the folks that lobby the government on behalf of tax prep companies for this convoluted mess we have. The more confused we are, the more money they make.
There are very influential anti-tax and small government think tanks that vehemently argue against it, from the perspective that it reduces oversight.
Their position is that people just won't pay much attention to how much taxes they're paying if they don't have to fill in tax paperwork themselves each year. Their position is that if you make it invisible to end users, governments will just keep creeping up that tax percentage on end users and people will just accept it.
They're not wrong as regards to visibility, in the UK where tax is PAYE (Pay As You Earn), I don't think I ever paid more than a moments glance at the P60 (but I'd often check month to month that things were in the ballpark I'd expect. I'm a little more unusual in that regard probably). In the US I've had to pay close attention.
How is the amount on a check or bill, if made clearly visible, somehow “not visible”?
To make this more explicit, presumably the chain of reasoning is as follows:
1. Make tax filing more painful.
2. As a general rule, people will set out to do that which reduces their pain.
3. Therefore, people will set out to do that which makes tax filing less painful.
4. People determine that lobbying for lower taxes will make tax filing less painful.
5. Therefore, people will set out to lobby for lower taxes.
Step 4 doesn't make sense to me because reducing total tax rate and reducing tax code complexity are orthogonal issues, and advocating for lower taxes will not in and of itself lead to a simpler tax code.
It's just an in-your-face reminder of how much you're paying in taxes, supposedly sending a stronger message to you than if the IRS were to send you a pre-filled return.
So the idea is, if you're more obviously reminded of how/why your tax money is leaving your wallet, you'll hate taxes more and lobby for lower taxes. You understand that doing so won't make filing taxes any less complicated (and in fact it might be more complicated if taxes are lowered through new deductions and credits that you need to prove eligibility for), but you'll expect to be paying less.
It's still stupid, but at least the chain of logic could potentially hold if you squint close enough and agree with the premises.
But that’s just going back to my comment 4 levels up this thread. If it’s an issue of tax amount visibility and not tax filing pain, the latter is not needed for the former.
Anyone who uses TurboTax etc. doesn't actually "do their taxes". They're basically just doing a data entry job, mechanically typing values into boxes from forms as TurboTax prompts them. In many cases people don't even do that, instead opting to direct TurboTax to automatically fetch their data from a payroll provider, bank, brokerage, etc. and do it for them. So for many people it's just 1) enter in financial institution usernames and passwords; 2) click "file my return".
And given that the IRS wouldn't just "send you a bill", but instead send a pre-filled return, people would have every opportunity to read through it and decide if they agree with what the IRS filled in.
There is materially nothing different. The tax prep lobby has just done a fantastic job of convincing people that it "feels better" to fill out your own taxes rather than getting a pre-filled return from the IRS. Which is bonkers, especially since that supposed "feel good" crap wastes billions of dollars every year.
(The US is also pay-as-you-earn, btw. If your employer doesn't withhold enough taxes from your paycheck and you don't make up for it by paying quarterly estimated taxes, you have to pay extra penalties come tax day.)