2 extra days to file taxes this year

The annual income tax headache is drawing closer for wage earners across the country, the time to uncover all those receipts and slips of paper needed to fill out Uncle Sam's sometimes incomprehensible forms and pay up.

The good news? Taxpayers get an extra two days to send their returns to the Internal Revenue Service this year. April 15, the traditional tax day, falls on a Sunday, and as Washington, D.C., is celebrating Emancipation Day on the 16th, the due date is April 17.

What isn't changing anytime soon is the complexity of the nation's tax system and the hoops even those willing to meet their obligations are forced to jump through.

Nina Olson, who heads the Taxpayer Advocate Service at the IRS, sympathizes, maintaining that "even taxpayers who will go to great lengths to comply may inadvertently fail if the rules are so complicated that they -- or their preparers -- cannot figure out what is required."

There were about 4,430 changes to the tax code from 2001 through 2010, an average of more than one a day, including an estimated 579 changes in 2010 alone.

Individual taxpayers now find the burden of return preparation so overwhelming that almost 60 percent pay preparers to do it for them. More than 70 percent of unincorporated small business taxpayers farm out the duty to others. Another 29 percent of individual taxpayers use tax software to help them prepare their returns with software packages that often cost $50 or more.