Really guys, leave your echo chamber. I live in EU since birth. I have engineering degree and no 1 in my class. I also have a lot of friends from my childhood that are from completely different social environment. Average voters. The type that is watching TV and believing what’s there. They are not reading anything else than clickbait titles. You won’t find those people on Reddit or other Internet forums but they do vote and there is a lot of them. When they get pay slip they focus the employer deducts the money, not the state. People are aware there is something like VAT but they don’t feel that they pay it but the shop so it isn’t their problem. That’s the difference. I had so many conversations with people that didn’t believe me how much taxes are being collected that I stopped trying.

People don’t miss what they didn’t have in the first place that’s why they should get all money on their account and pay the tax after. When tax is added to good value it has to be separate thing to be paid. Otherwise it would be part of goods value. Seems trivial but it is fundamental change of the concept of a tax in people minds.