There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. Literal

There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. Literally true! I've had to interact with IRS employees, and as far as I could tell, they basically had what amounted to what my tax return should be on some kind of computer screen right in front of them. This was back in 2015 or so!