I see the glass as half full.<p>You are right it is complex,  but some of that complexity is inherent to the problem of determine what the income of a self employed person actually is.<p>When I started my taxpaying career I would fill out the 1040EZ in 15 minutes,  that was one of Reagan&#x27;s best things.  A lot of people only get W-2 income for them and the experience is streamlined.<p>The key thing is emotional.  If you have a complex life over a long period of time you will have trouble with your taxes but you also will have trouble with your bank, phone company, airlines, and many other public and private organizations.  The people at the IRS are not ogres who want to wreck your life but who want to orderly keep the lights on.<p>Don&#x27;t get me started about how they&#x27;ll (almost) stick probes in to your orifices in Japan or how people in Italy pay a fraction of what they should.  VAT taxes work a lot like the  &quot;Flat Tax&quot; some people like,  and the administration of those is far worse than the administration of income and payroll in a small biz,  I funded one that had a near death experience.  If a small business has to pay it in multiple jurisidictions,  such as US states,  it&#x27;s maddeningly hard.  A central VAT could help with that though.<p>(For instance,  you have to pay a few $100 in NYS just for the privilege to file your sales tax.  You can get started quickly making and selling a few widgets that cost,  say $50 and thus learn something about product-market fit with a tiny investment.  It&#x27;s a great way to make money and have fun and maybe you can scale it up.  No way are you going to pay that fee before you start doing such a little thing and practically you won&#x27;t later.<p>You think you got away with it because it takes a long time for the government to scan all the paperwork for problems.<p>Get up to having a storefront with a corporate registration and you will likely get caught and then you owe something like $5K of sales taxes so if you are not good with paperwork you&#x27;ll find the corporate veil works against you and not with you this time and you could end up with no corporation in weeks unless you pay up the cash and all of it.  A photo of our shop that was barred by the state was in the local newspaper If it wasn&#x27;t for the faith and good will of our customers,  who bought into the company,  it would have been done for. )