It’s THAT time again. The time when bean counters everywhere go through pencil lead and coffee like a shopaholic goes through a trust fund. The time of year I dread more than any other.

It’s tax time.

Every year I promise myself I will be better at saving my receipts. I will keep them organized into income and deduction categories with detailed explanations attached, and sorted by date. And I’m really good at keeping that promise…for about 2 months. Then I resort to jotting cryptic explanations on Walmart receipts and tossing them into a box. Or onto a pile on the corner of my desk. Or the kitchen junk drawer.

Then about this time of year I have to block a week on my calendar to dig out all those scraps of paper and organize them into some sort of recognizable order so my accountant won’t dismiss me as a client when I walk through his office door with a bulging cardboard box and trailing little pieces of notepaper behind me.

Because I’m a procrastinator, I decided to look up some facts about taxes in the US. You might find them them interesting, as I did.

• Taxes first began during the Civil War. (That surprised me.)
• The US tax code is over 70,000 pages long. (This does not surprise me!)
• The IRS enforced Prohibition in the 1920’s. (No wonder nobody likes the Tax Man!)
• There has never been a civilization that we know of that didn’t have taxes. (I’m not sure I believe this. Did Native American tribes have taxes? Does everybody in the world today–even in remote areas of third world countries–pay taxes?)
• If someone reports their company for tax evasion in the U.S., he or she will receive 30% of the amount collected. (I’m self-employed, so cheating employers are safe from me.)
• In Texas belt buckles are taxed an additional 6.25 percent. But cowboy boots are exempt from taxes.  (Okay, now that’s an interesting tax fact!)

Okay, I’ve procrastinated enough. Time to get busy sorting through all those scraps of paper with unreadable notes scrawled in the margins.

Happy tax time, friends.