Let me tell you how it will be;
There's one for you, nineteen for me.
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman...

Ah, April. When one's thoughts turn to the government and how much they're going to give or take from your wallet. There's nothing better than a nice, fat tax return from Uncle Sam, right? Must be, since that's what all the tax preparers seem to emphasize. Time to buy a nice little present.

Except for one thing. It's your money.

That's right. When you do the form and find out you're getting $1800 back? That's not a magical gift from the government. That's $1800 extra they took from you over the course of the year. Imagine what you could have done with an extra $150 a month, and you're just getting it back now.

The way I figure, the ideal situation (one that the self-employed are all too familiar with and one you probably can't do if employed by someone else) would be to have no withholding from your paycheck. The government takes nothing, but now you need the incredible self-discipline to put aside money for taxes. Let's say... $100 a month, $1200 total. What if you put that $100 a month into a savings account? Or put the entire $1200 into a one-year CD up front? Now the money that the government is going to get is working for you while you have it.

(Yeah, it was a lot better back in the salad days when my savings account was making 4.25% instead of 1.50%... but you get the idea. And any interest is earned money.)

As this tax season draws to a close, all I'm saying is remember: That nice fat return isn't found money, it was your money all along. You just didn't have access to it until the government gave it back to you.