I can’t keep track of how many times a day people try to rob me. But if there’s been any recent advance in civilization, it’s that robbery no longer has to involve the antiquated violence of mugging.

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, e-muggers can reach out to millions of people at a time. Just today I’ve received a tempting offer from a bogus insurance company, an alert about my credit rating, a heartfelt request for mutual assistance from a wealthy Nigerian widow, congratulations from Walmart, some shocking news that Big Pharma doesn’t want me to know, more shocking news about melting belly fat, a chance to win $5,000 a week for life, several jobs in the Dallas area, a credit card I’ve never heard of, a free vacuum cleaner, the TRUTH about vaccines, a slew of exclusive VIP invitations, and a reminder that my Trump life membership is about to expire.

Yes, a life membership that expires. How do I know it’s really from Trump and not some e-mugger? Because “life membership” in a person sounds like conman fast-talk, and the self-contradiction of an expiring life membership is shamelessly blatant. And who but he would send a follow-up email offering me Gold membership for as little as $25?

And that’s not all! That’s just the e-mugger messages. At least as many come from vigilant corporations stabbing in the dark for my supposed needs. Somehow a chain of shoe stores knows I need new shoes. What it doesn’t know is that I don’t want new shoes.

And despite the theoretical accuracy of artificially intelligent algorithms, if somebody thinks I’m in the market for furniture, they are barking up the wrong tree. I don’t buy furniture. I leave furniture at the curb and feel wealthier for the empty space it left behind.

I don’t know who’s in charge of this Amazonian gush of sales pitches. Sometimes I suspect it’s nobody. And I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. The lack of productive purpose hints at a lack of leadership and organization. On the other hand, I’m glad they aren’t organized.

None of this bothers me too terribly much. I go through my email as if cleaning a fish, quickly discarding the yucky parts while preserving the real meat.

I can afford to ignore it all because I’m pretty much impervious to sales pitches. I have all the stuff I want plus a lot of stuff I don’t. I have reached the frontier of spending. My wad is wound tight. I’m not buying anything I can’t eat or read.

Maybe it’s my own felonious tendencies that helps me spot scams. I confess I’ve put some thought into ripping off Nigerian widows. I bet I could rob a bank if I felt like it. And if I could find the suckers who buy Gold memberships in Donald Trump, I’d be glad to sell them the EXCLUSIVE secret to melting belly fat. (It’s an ancient Egyptian formula PROVEN to be effective because have you ever seen an overweight hieroglyphic? No, you haven’t.)

But the felony of the day is tax fraud. Now’s the time. The ability of the IRS to detect tax cheats has been choked back by 20 percent over the last 10 years. It’s so short-staffed that it can barely process tax returns, let along figure out who’s cheating.

One thing the service has figured out, however, is that it’s easier to nail the lower class than the upper class. Those who labor for a living tend to have all their income documented. Those who do whatever it is the rich do tend to have convoluted streams of income and complex, if not shady, schemes of deduction. The IRS estimates that 99 percent of taxes due on labor are paid. Compliance on shiftier income is estimated at just 45 percent.

And of course it’s easier to “process” the poor than the billionaire with a phalanx of lawyers and a coven of accountants. The poor are the low-hanging fruit.

I don’t see much difference between old-fashioned muggers, e-mugger and tax muggers, except that tax muggers cause everyone else’s taxes to go up. President Biden has proposed beefing up the IRS for better enforcement. I think it’s about time.

Glenn Alan Cheney is a writer, translator and managing editor of New London Librarium. He can be reached at glenn@NLLibrarium.com.