Just pointing out that when people talk about US taxes, they're usually leaving out quite a bit of things that aren't "US income tax", like state taxes and SSN. (The US is divided into 50 states, which have a certain amount of autonomy and their own ability to collect income tax. This can range from 0% for some states (Texas) to over 10% for other states (California!) There can also be local taxes and property taxes. SSN (Social Security, which provides retirement and catastrophic injury safety net, sort of) is particularly regressive, since it applies to the first ~$100k of income (flatly.) So when an American conservative says something like "47% of Americans don't pay any income tax", they aren't including the ~15% of all income (SSN+medicare) that everyone pays on all wages (half of which is paid by the employer.) And it doesn't include state or local taxes.
OTOH, the magnitude of VAT in Europe always amazes me... (The US would call it "sales tax", and add it at the register instead of to marked prices, but it seldom reaches 10%.)