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No one enjoys paying taxes, but these factoids might take some of the sting out of writing that annual check:

• Taxes were originally due on March 1. The date was changed to March 15 shortly before the beginning of Prohibition. In 1955 it was changed to April 15 to spread out the work of processing all the tax forms.
• The first tax form was just four pages long, including instructions.

Unusual deductions:

• A parent was able to deduct the expenses for her child’s clarinet lessons because she claimed they corrected the child’s overbite.
• A junkyard owner deducted cat food for the cats he kept to drive away mice and rats, and the IRS approved it as a business expense.
• A bodybuilder claimed a deduction for the cost of the body oil that he used in competitions, and again the IRS allowed it as a business expense.