Why is it that just when you think you can relish the prospects of a new year, a clean slate, and a fresh beginning, you are pulled up short by the realization that before you know it you will have to tackle the ever perplexing, always annoying job of preparing your taxes for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? Whose idea was that and what gives our government the right to force us to pay? What exactly are the constitutional parameters allowing our government to tax us?

I found that like so much in our constitution, the guidelines are stated simply, in the vaguest of terms.

• Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 (commonly referred to as the taxing and spending clause) states: “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

So, there you have it…the IRS can do it; but one wonders how such a simple concept has morphed into the behemoth with which we now have to contend on an annual basis.