APRIL 15th is looming for the millions of Americans and foreign residents who must file their annual tax returns by that date or pay penalties. It is a dreaded task which is usually handed over to accountants.
But there can be good news for those who have overpaid the previous year and will now get it back.
The tax forms are intimidating, with instructions like: "If your first payment is due April 15th, enter one-fourth of line 18 (minus any 1996 overpayment you are applying to this instalment) ... Reduce each instalment by one-third of line 17 and any 1996 overpayment you are applying to this instalment", etc, etc.
That is just for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which collects what the federal government wants from you. The state you live in is also after your money, so you go through another series of forms to work out what you owe Maryland or New York.
Some people even have to pay a local income tax on top of the other two. Then there are social security tax and town property tax and the sales tax on every item you buy.
So while income tax rates might be lower than in European countries, there seem to be more taxes to pay. No wonder Speaker Newt Gingrich is in trouble with his Congressional colleagues for not pressing for tax cuts before trying to balance the budget.
The IRS has a fearsome reputation for cracking down on tax dodgers, who usually pay big fines and go to prison. But is this reputation justified?
Time magazine has been looking into the IRS and finds that "your chances of being prosecuted for a tax crime are about the same as for being murdered on the street, 17 in a million. Fewer than four of every 10,000 non filers ever get caught".
Well, Al Capone got caught. And Richard Nixon kept prodding his staff to get the IRS to investigate the tax returns of his political opponents and unfriendly journalists, so those odds might be deceptive.
Then there is what some people in the IRS get up to. I'd better be careful here.
The Wall Street Journal reports on its front page that one IRS employee, Richard Czubinski, "snooped on enemies, friends". It seems that he and other IRS officials "browse" through tax returns when they are bored or just "curious".
This is frowned on, of course, by the IRS. Hence Mr Czubinski was hauled before a court on 13 counts of "wire and computer fraud" and spent six months in jail. But now he has successfully appealed because the prosecution did not prove he had used the information or disclosed it to anyone.
This decision has alarmed the IRS. Its chief of administration, David Mader, says: "Taxpayers need to know that the information they share in a confidential manner with the IRS is safeguarded."
Mr Czubinski, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and had looked up the records of a political opponent, explained his actions as "curiosity". He said: "It's human nature to be curious ... It was just like if you go into somebody's home, have you ever looked in the medicine cabinet?"
Mr Czubinski's job was to handle inquiries from worried taxpayers or dodgers on the IRS free-phone line.
"I enjoyed it very much," he says. "A lot of people were afraid of the IRS and when they called they were very nervous. I'd alleviate all of those tensions. I'd say I work for you, there's nothing to be afraid of." They'd feel comfortable when they hung up with me.
Maybe the IRS should bring him back, now that he is out of jail.
Another IRS "browser", Geoffrey Couglin, was fined $3,000 for wire fraud after he admitted looking into more than 150 files including those of friends, relatives, ex girlfriends, politicians and sports stars.
IRS official Robert Patterson passed time on night shifts looking up the tax records of people called Dolly Parton, Karen Carpenter, Garth Brooks, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. In some cases the records that came up belonged to the celebrities, but in other cases it was people who just happened to have the same name.
Mr Patterson was also acquitted because while it is a crime to use confidential tax records, just looking is not, even if it is just out of curiosity. "Browsing didn't start with me and it won't end with me," he is quoted as saying.
So it's better to be a tax-paying nonentity than a high-earning celebrity when the taxmen get bored.