I doubt this is specific to western Europe but the case in all countries. Because in theory you can't "give" anything without paying taxes. Meaning you can't give a gift without paying taxes. There are some exceptions of course but overall if you "give" someone something it has a value. In theory the tax service will look at what the "value" of it is and you should pay taxes over it. It doesn't matter if "something" is a service, goods or whatever.

For example if someone cleans your house every week. Even if that person does it for charity, for fun or whatever it could be seen as a service with value. In theory you should pay taxes over such a thing.

It becomes even more of a gray area if for example someone cleans your house every week and you give them a bag of groceries in return.

Overall is a thousand shades gray thing but the gist of it is that in all countries you can't just give a gift without paying taxes. Otherwise it would be easy to dodge taxes. I could just "give" someone a car.

But thats just a very theoretical look at taxes. In practice this is never enforced.