Of course, it's very difficult to directly compare such things for a single individual, never mind the median individual (you'd have to account for the fact that the UK taxes include medical insurance as well as a pension on one side and lower sales tax in California on the other side, and so on...).

My point was that taxes in countries where the tax return is automatically performed by the government aren't necessarily higher than in parts of the US. In other words, OP's comment above was nothing more than FUD.