There was a post a while ago where a German person posted that they were confused by the US nonprofit systems, they basically said I pay my taxes and the government makes sure it’s spent feeding the needy and foreign aid and all that. Why should I go through the trouble of researching all these charities trying to find a good one to donate to.

Not that Germany doesn’t have non profits, but they really should be for special interest type cases where you explicitly want to send money to a cause, not general global well being.