You're right, the current taxation systems are already very complex. Governments have done a very good job at obfuscating the tax burden. Sales taxes (VAT), inc

You're right, the current taxation systems are already very complex. Governments have done a very good job at obfuscating the tax burden. Sales taxes (VAT), income taxes, and payroll taxes are all largely the same thing - they are all essentially dependent on your income to some degree. If we added all of them together into one income tax (or sales tax) then people would probably find high taxation a bigger issue, but because people encounter these taxes one by one the problem doesn't seem as big. Although, I will say that this issue is much less of a problem in the US, where the tax burden is lower than in Europe.