Millions of Americans -- maybe tens of millions -- are in debt to the IRS, which is worse that the worst loan shark that ever lived. They throw on enormous interest and penalties on top of whatever principle you might owe, and almost immediately double or triple the debt. Getting out from under the IRS is extremely difficult.
The problem is, all those millions of people in debt to the IRS only see their problem as an individual one for themselves. If it was possible for everyone to rise to a higher vantage point to see the magnitude of the problem, I suspect there would be a tax revolt of massive proportions.
The income tax was a horrible idea 100 years ago when it was in the process of being proposed, then ratified. But it was sold to the American people as something that would only tax the "robber barons" of the Guilded Age. The sales pitch was that average Americans would pay little to no taxes. That's laughable from our perspective, when the average person with income is paying upwards of 20 to 25 percent of their income to the feds, plus another chunk to their states (in most cases), counties and cities. Plus the feds double, triple and sometimes even quadruple tax every dollar. Anything they can say is "income" is taxed at every point it becomes a different type of "income."
That the American people meekly put up with this rape of their incomes to pay the ever rapacious maw of government is astonishing, and speaks to the tendency of most people to just go along to get along.
Everything has its tipping point and we are there as far as the present tax code is concerned.