All City Tattoo artist Jeremy Baker works on drawings between customers at the St. Louis shop. Artists say this can be their busiest time of year.

ST. LOUIS — Score — that fat tax refund just landed in your checking account. Time to finally have some fun, right?

Not according to all the money managers out there. Pay down your credit cards, they urge. Invest in your retirement, they advise. Build up an emergency fund, they warn. Get a tattoo — no, that is definitely not on the list.

But.

Artist Micah Richter will tell you that this is about his busiest season of the year. If he’s not drawing a design, it’s likely he’s putting it onto a person’s skin — permanently — at Integrity Tattoos in Belleville, Ill. Richter has been a tattoo artist for 20 years.

“It’s the same thing every year,” he said. “Most of the people say this is the only time they get a big chunk of random money. They call it free money.”

So how big of a splurge do customers want?

It depends. Richter said some people come in and spend their entire return; others come in for something small. But they do show up, and some of them are returning customers.

“I see people on an annual basis,” he said.

Some of the customers at Integrity Tattoo tell Richter the same thing — they use all their Christmas money, then wait for their tax returns to get fresh ink.

“It’s a common thing. It happens all over the country.”

Ask Andrew Alvarez. The 22-year-old Belleville man got his first tattoo last year when his tax refund check arrived. Inked onto his body: “We define ourselves by the best that is in us.” Alvarez said he decided to get one after talking to a friend at school.

“He had just gotten one, and I had a little extra money so I decided to do it.”

Across the river at Gateway Tattoo Studio in Arnold, Mo., owner Elliott Groth is booked solid — for about three or four weeks. And yes, it’s income tax refund-related.

“It’s human nature if you get handed a lump sum of money you start spending it on the stuff you’ve been putting off, or wanting to get but you didn’t really have the money,” he said.

“Disposable income is a wonderful thing for our business.”

At All City Tattoo in St. Louis, artist Megan Indelicato said it’s a similar story.

“They’re getting four or five at a time,” she said. “Buying for themselves, their significant other, their cousin. It’s their combo pack.”

As millions of people have gotten tattoos, any sense of stigma has long since worn off.

A Harris Poll of more than 2,200 U.S. adults in 2015 found that nearly three in 10 Americans have at least one tattoo. And once you get one, you’re likely to get more: Among people with any tattoos, seven in 10 have two or more.