The UK system is very smooth as a small business owner.

When an employee leaves a job they are given a P45 form to hand to the new employer, which contains a summary of any pay to date for the current tax year along with a tax code.

All I have to do when hiring is enter this information into the accounting software and everything just works. National Insurance, Pensions and Student Loans are calculated monthly and taken via Direct Debit, as are VAT payments and returns. Employees are automatically emailed payslips with breakdowns of their pay and deductions.

Any relevant information is submitted to HMRC (the UK's IRS) by the accounting software, so it takes me ~10 mins a month to complete payroll for 5 employees. When an employee leaves, creating a P45 for the next employer takes a single click.

The gov.uk website is exceptionally well organised and contains detailed lists of everything an employer or employee needs to do at all stages in the process.

The US self-assessment system seems opaque, inefficient and ripe for abuse in comparison. It also places the stress of reporting taxes onto every individual rather than just the employers.

As a fellow British small business owner I assume you're familiar with the UK's self-assessment scheme as well? I've always found it to be very quick and painless, and unlike the US system there's no need to get an accountant or even any specialised software involved.

I was really surprised how easy it was, it takes maybe 10 mins if you have the information and logins to hand.

Honestly I can't think of many ways to improve the UK's online accounting process from either an employer or employee's standpoint because I already spend less than a day total per year on it.

And in Germany. In Germany, if you are an employee and not a freelancer or self-employed, you don’t have to file taxes at all. You can of course, if you think your deductibles are higher than the deductibles that are automatically applied.

Same in the Netherlands. It takes me all of ten minutes each year to file taxes for my partner and myself, and most of that is spent authenticating in the provided webapp.

Not quite true - I'm salaried, but because I earn over a specific amount, and have children, I have to file a tax return. However, this is basically a matter of copying some numbers from one government website to another government website, and doesn't require any particular expertise, just about a hour or so of tedium.

Same in Sweden, and I'd imagine the rest of the Nordic countries. If not all of Western Europe.

And in Norway.

Not quite. I Norway you log in and check the numbers. In UK you do literally nothing at all.

You do not have to check the numbers in Norway, you can simply assume that Skattettaten has got it right and just let it go. After all if you check and see that everything is correct you do not do anything else, you do not confirm the correctness of the numbers, you just don't correct them. At least that's the way it was last time I did it, in April this year.

Same in Russia