Chute$ and Ladder$

Are you scrambling around, looking for receipts, scouring Al Gore's Internet for appropriate deductions, and generally racing about as if there was a big exam coming up? You're not alone. That's what tax time does for many of us: It makes us think that if we do it right that we will somehow do it better. "It," in this case being the payment of taxes.
I've never been much of a rebel when it comes to the Internal Revenue Service, but let's start with that name: I get the first couple of words, but how is this a "service?" They're asking us to do a lot of math so that we can eventually pony up the money they have already decided that we owe them. Only when we are very clever do we manage to turn those tables. "Aha!" we cry as we notch a few dollars here or there because we qualify for the "indoor plumbing exemption." "Gotcha!" we exclaim when we uncover that missing dependent who was in the basement doing laundry for the past two years. When you get a refund, it's money that the government "owes" you. You paid too much. If you're clever and it ends up a wash, you paid the government the right amount in the first place. If it sounds a little like Las Vegas, then you're starting to get the idea.
Then there's the alternative of simply not paying your taxes at all. If you only buy your gardening supplies when Orchard Supply and Hardware has their "we'll pay the sales tax" event and you follow the wisdom of Steve Martin, who once suggested the simple solution of simply saying "I forgot" when the tax man came to the door, then you could get out from under the thumb of the man. Or spend considerable time in a federal penitentiary, depending on your economic status at the time.
And that's really the rub, here. If you've got a ton of money, you generally pay a bunch of very clever people to help you keep your money. If you don't have much money, your alternative is late nights with a couple of busted pencils and a tired calculator or a ride on the Turbo Tax fun wagon. When it's all said and done, and the wars you never liked in the first place are paid for and the school down the street has closed because there wasn't enough money, do you get a nice card from the Internal Revenue Service thanking you for your donation?
Don't stand by the mailbox waiting.