Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?
The NTA (National Tax Authority, cited as the Kokuzeicho in the article) doesn't figure out your taxes for you. Your employer does, as one of the (many!) ways in which they exercise paternalistic control of your life.  If you do not have an employer, you get to go through a process which is almost exactly as fun as it is in the US, modulo a modestly competent online filing application.I spent $3k this year on accountant time to file my personal taxes. The majority of the cost is driven by my various extracurricular activities.  In the five years where I did my own taxes as a self-employed person, I generally lost between 2 and 5 working days a year to the effort, largely driven by the "calculate the income and expenses of your self-employed business" part of the return.A Japanese corporation with one employee is in for about ~$5k a year of professional services fees incident to managing payroll for that single employee, not counting the taxes themselves.  (I personally can't wait until this space gets Gusto-ed here, and SmartHr and other companies are starting to get there.)