No one like paying taxes, not even Judith Warner (wouldn’t want to put a crimp in her annual month-long vacation to France now, would we?). But did you know that, according to the IRS, the whole system is voluntary! Well, except that it, erm, isn’t. Cato’s David Boaz explains:

[T]he income tax system is based on “voluntary compliance.” No, really, it says so right on the 1040 packet and throughout the IRS website. Indeed, the friendly folks at the IRS acknowledge (.pdf) that some people get the wrong idea because the IRS itself tells taxpayers in the Form 1040 instruction book that the tax system is voluntary.” But if you take their little online test of “Your Role as a Taxpayer,” they explain to you that it is True that “IRS publications state that the tax system is voluntary,” but it is also True that “The government has the right to force me to pay my taxes and charge me penalties for not paying taxes.” Go figure.

IRS commissioner Mark W. Everson helpfully clears up the matter, reportedly saying, “We want your money whether you are here legally or not and whether you earned it legally or not.” In other words: Watch out, Tony Soprano.