Can’t speak about Germany for sure, but usual euro way is you don’t need to do taxes at all if you do not run a business. Employer fills it for you. And getting a doing-business-as-individual is as simple as filling a form at revenue service website telling you’re starting a business. Then you get a tax ID to put on your invoices next day.
If you sell as an individual, it’s just you selling random stuff that you don’t need to pay taxes for. Once you do this as a business, you declare it as such and notify the state about it.
Germany is notoriously bureaucratic. And Spain is just pure fucking hell. Notaries should be hunted for sport.
Britain is great. I can file my taxes online relatively painlessly for any non-employment income. Employment income is done automatically. To set up a small business, I buy public liability insurance and a domain. Many tasks that require multiple notary appointments in Spain can be done online or, for some obscure processes, at the post office.
I suspect that business climate divides sharply between the north and south, with Germany and France being honorary southerners. I'd love to unpack the link between Catholicism and stultifying bureaucracy, since both involve archaic institutions imposing themselves between oneself and one's goal.
I doubt there's much link with Catholicism. Here in Lithuania bureaucracy is pretty simple as I described above. From what I hear Poland is even easier.
If you sell as an individual, it’s just you selling random stuff that you don’t need to pay taxes for. Once you do this as a business, you declare it as such and notify the state about it.