There was a neat piece on NPR Friday about why it's a bad idea to evade filing Federal tax returns. Among the spine-tingling techniques used to pinpoint tax cheats: * The IRS knows about big cash transactions (we knew this already here.) * The IRS has all data from states concerning individuals registered as licensed persons in any field of work; thus, if you're a doctor, lawyer, plumber, electrician, or registered professional engineer, the IRS knows it. * [This blew my socks off] The IRS has subscription data for many national magazines. Thus, if they know you're getting Time & Newsweek & Barron's and USNews but they see no tax return, they nab you. This builds a good case for the notion that the IRS will have big, big problems with digital cash economies. They also probably have problems with electronic magazines mailed through anonymous remailer chains :-) m5