If you’re the band Europe, The Final Countdown is your biggest musical hit of the 1980’s, and the 18th of April is just another day for you.

If you’re an American taxpayer however, the final countdown takes on a whole new meaning. You now have less than a week to file your 2015 tax return.

Uncle Sam is not a patient man when it comes to taxes.

The penalty for filing late will typically equal 5 percent of the unpaid taxes you owe for every month or part of a month you put off filing your return, up to a 25 percent cap.

Even if you can't afford your taxes now, it's best to, at the very least, file your tax return on time. If you do not pay your taxes by the due date, you will generally have to pay a failure-to-pay penalty of ½ of 1 percent of your unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month after the due date.

Another option filers have is called an extension, which grants taxpayers up to six additional months to file.

It’s important to remember that the extension is an extension of time to file, not an extension of time to pay. Even so, the failure to pay penalty is a lot less than the failure to file penalty. 

The days may be growing longer as spring rolls in, but the time to file is growing shorter. With only a few days left to file, make sure you put them to good use.

Like a train in the night, you can see the tax deadline approaching. You can hear its long, lonely whistle coming closer, but for some reason, you still haven't organized your tax papers.

Don’t worry, you are not alone. In most tax offices, the last day of tax season is also one of the busiest.

If you’re the type that likes to put everything together at the last minute, here are some tips to help:

Organization.  Assemble all your documents before you start adding up figures. A little extra time at the beginning can save you a lot of trouble at the end.

Charitable Donations.  If you made a lot of charitable donations, go through your credit card and bank statements to make sure you didn’t miss any small ones.

IRAs.  If your numbers aren’t looking so good, you can still contribute to a traditional IRA all the way up to the tax-filing deadline as a way to reduce your overall income.

Haste makes Waste.  The clock is ticking. You’re in a rush, and you just want to be done with it. Make sure to avoid these common last-minute errors:

• Math mistakes
• Transposing numbers
• Getting important information like Social Security numbers wrong
• Signing your return

If possible, put aside your return for a day and then come back to go over everything one last time.  You may be surprised at the simple errors you’ll catch.

Next year, see if you can get an earlier start. Taxes can be stressful enough without a deadline looming over you.

The month of April can be a rough. Not only is this section of our calendars filled with proverbial showers (we supposedly have to wait until May for the flowers), but also the 15th is usually the last day we can put off filing our taxes.

So what better way to start off such an ominous month than by playing a prank that will have people talking for weeks afterwards? Here are a few of the more famous ones people have pulled off through the years:

• An edition of the Madison Capital-Times in 1933 included an edited photo of the Wisconsin state capital in ruins. The accompanying story claimed that the building was wrecked by a series of explosions caused by hot gas produced by the “verbose debates” in the chambers.
• On April 1, 1957, the British Broadcasting Corporation told viewers that there had been an “exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop” in Switzerland that year, due in part to “the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.”  
• In 1996, Taco Bell ran an ad announcing that it had purchased the Liberty Bell. While the stunt had its critics, it changed the way many companies viewed April Fools’ Day marketing.
• Not to be outdone, Burger King published a full-page ad in USA Today announcing the creation of the 'Left-Handed Whopper' in 1998. The next day, thousands of southpaws showed up to try their new favorite burger only to find it was a hoax.

Do you have any pranks up your sleeve?

Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hoping down the bunny trail
Hippety-hoppin’, Easter’s on its way!
Bringin' every girl and boy
Baskets full of Easter joy
Things to make your Easter bright and gay

It might be cold and dreary when you look outside your office or kitchen window, but Easter—and spring— are on their way.

Well, spring is nice, you say, but how in the world did cute bunnies find their way into the act?

Find the answer to this question and other fun facts about Easter below:  

• The name Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eastre.
• What about that crazy rabbit? Well, the totem of Eastre is a hare—and according to the story, the goddess can turn into a hare at will.
• Each year nearly 90 million chocolate bunnies are made.
• 76 percent of those chocolate bunny eaters prefer to start with the ears.  
• The popular Easter song Here Comes Peter Cottontail was written by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins in 1949.   
• In 1950, the Mervin Shiner version of the song reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.  
• In the Greek Orthodox culture, Easter eggs are traditionally painted red.
• The most famously known Easter event took place in the year 1878. That year president Hayes and his wife Lucy officially opened the White House grounds to the children for egg rolling. Since then, this event is held each year
• Don’t eat these eggs!  The first Faberge eggs were handcrafted in the 1880’s by the great goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge. Czar Alexander III of Russia commissioned them as gifts for his wife.

Here’s hoping Peter Cottontail finds his way to your door with a basket of goodies. Happy Easter!

“Beware the Ides of March!”  So spoke the soothsayer, and Julius Caesar ignored him and promptly went out to get himself stabbed to death by his best friend. That’ll teach him to pay more attention to the news.

So what are these infamous Ides anyway? About all most of us know, is that we need to beware of them, and they certainly didn’t do Julius any good. We probably would have never heard of them if it weren’t for William Shakespeare.  

Did good ol’ Will know something we don’t? Not really, except maybe how to write a dramatic scene.

In fact, March isn’t even the only month with an ‘Ides.’ The ancient Roman calendar had plenty of them.  In March, May, July, and October, the Ides fell on the 15th day. In every other month, the Ides fell on the 13th. The word comes from the Latin “to divide.”   

So should you be prepared to call out the National Guard and take cover in the nearest cellar on March 15th? Not unless you’re planning a career in politics and have particularly bad taste in friends.

Since it falls so close to the deadline for filing your taxes, you may have trouble with an even more fearsome Ides:  the Ides of April.

So as March rolls its way through, may the Ides be with you!

For most filers, tax season only last a few months. For tax scammers though, it’s a year-round opportunity for fraud.

Despite countless warnings by both the IRS and taxpayer advocacy groups, the scammers find enough marks to come back for more.

Here are some of the more common scams to watch out for:

Phishing Attempts.  Scammers will contact you by email requesting that you provide personal information, often accompanied by the threat of being audited or arrested if you don’t comply. Don’t believe them. Scammers can use the information you provide to quickly empty your bank accounts, rack up your credit card debit and worse. The IRS never uses e-mail to contact taxpayers about tax issues.

Charitable Donations.  Many taxpayers know that charitable donations are deductible. And con artists know that you know. Before you make a donation, it's important to check that these organizations are legitimately registered with the IRS as tax-exempt non-profit organizations. Check at this IRS website to be sure.

Tax Preparers.  Fraudsters will sometimes target accountants and other tax professionals by sending out emails telling unsuspecting preparers that they need to update their information to keep their IRS certification current. The hope is that these preparers will provide them with usernames, passwords and EIN numbers that they can then use to get personal information from clients.

Taxes can be enough of a headache without having to worry about tax scams. Knowing the tactics scammers are using can help you avoid becoming their next victim. If you need more information, the IRS has several suggestions for taxpayers to help protect themselves.