Early last week, millions of Americans, at least the procrastinators among us, filed their federal income taxes. The annual ritual fills some with relief at finishing and even satisfaction at completing the job. Others feel some irritation over the complexity of the tax forms and the financial sacrifice required.

But everyone who files and pays their income taxes properly should be angry over the so-called tax gap, which is the difference between what is owed the U.S. Treasury and what is actually collected by the Internal Revenue Service.

So many Americans fail to file or file inaccurate returns that federal officials estimate that nearly $300 billion of the nation's total income tax bill is unpaid and mostly uncollected. And this massive shortfall is a burden on every honest taxpayer, because for every dollar some taxpayer fraudulently fails to pay, other, honest taxpayers have to pay more to make up the difference.

Closing the tax gap has become a top priority in Washington, D.C. But it's not easy. If it were, the gap would not exist.

Last week, a small news item in the Butler Eagle reported that a Mars man faces federal charges for failing to file tax returns. In this case, federal prosecutors allege Bernard J. Petras failed to file for three years, during which time he had income of $264,000.

This one case is one small part of the gigantic tax gap. Some people fail to file, some understate their income, others inflate their expenses. Some of the tax gap can be attributed to the overly complex tax code. Whatever the method, it's mostly cheating — and it all costs honest taxpayers.

Cheating on taxes is sometimes portrayed as almost quaint or a harmless lie that doesn't hurt anyone. But it does.

To understand the scope of the tax gap, it's worth noting that the 2006 federal budget deficit was about $250 billion. If every taxpayer, including individuals and businesses, paid the taxes that are legally owed, the federal budget would immediately shift from deficit to surplus or close to balance.

That alone should be enough for most Americans to care about closing the tax gap. A more powerful motivation should come from the knowledge that for every dollar that is not paid by the tax cheaters, honest taxpayers have to pay more.

Some ideas for closing the tax gap, such as having stock brokerages report the cost basis of a stock that was sold, not just the proceeds of the sale, are practical. Another proposal would require reporting for the ever-increasing retail activity on the Internet, such as Amazon and eBay. There are other proposals, such as, imposing major additional tax-reporting requirements could be an unreasonable burden on small businesses, because abuses by small businesses are believed to be one of the largest components of the tax gap.

More auditing also is expected, although audits alone cannot close the tax gap. Most experts agree that more third-party reporting is necessary to boost compliance and reduce cheating.

None of the ideas being considered is painless, but the inconvenience of added reporting requirements has to be weighed against the unfairness of the noncompliance by tax cheaters.

Whatever the attempted solutions, serious effort must be given to closing the tax gap — by the IRS, by Congress and by the American public.